(^mmll Uttlrmitg JUrwg 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 ..^.fJ//l£... 
 
cornel. UnlversHV Ubrary 
 
 arW38606 «, Nor 
 
 —J .ridresses reaa.«f„„,|,|„|,iiiii\iiu\ 
 Essay 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031775988 
 
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 READ BEFORE THE 
 
 NORTH-BASTERK 
 
 OHIO TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 Organized Nov. 13, 1869. 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 CLEVELAND : 
 FAIRBANKS, BENEDICT & CO., PRINTERS. 
 
 1876. 
 
 Or 
 
A. HO^Q$~ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The Noeth-Eastben Ohio Tkaohees' Association, at its regular 
 meeting, held in Cleveland, December 11, 1875, appointed a com- 
 mittee of its members to make a collection of essays and addresses 
 read at its several meetings, and have the same printed and bound, as 
 a contribution to the educational exhibit of Ohio at the "Centennial.'' 
 
 In obedience to this action this volume has been prepared. 
 
 The thanks of the Association are due to the educators whose 
 papers appear in the following pages, for their generous compliance 
 with the wishes of the body of teachers who made the demand upon 
 them; and the Committee of Publication desire to express their 
 thanks to all who have aided them in the preparation of this volume. 
 
 ANDR. J. BICKOFF, 
 B. F. MOULTON, 
 SAMUEL PINDLET, 
 L. L. CAMPBELL, 
 ALEX. POEBES, 
 
 Committee of Publication. 
 
A BRIEF HISTORY. 
 
 For a year or two a number of superintendents 
 and teachers of the schools, in the cities and towns 
 of which Cleveland is the commercial centre, had 
 been accustomed to meet frequently and exchange 
 views on questions pertaining to their special work. 
 These informal meetings were felt to be profitable 
 to those engaging in them. The opinion was gener- 
 ally entertained that there was professional interest 
 among the teachers to warrant an organization which 
 should hold meetings at stated times, thus securing 
 agreement as to time of meeting and questions to be 
 considered. Accordingly, on Saturday, November 
 13, 1869, a few gentlemen met in one of the rooms 
 of the Weddell House, and there organized the 
 North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association". 
 An earnest desire for combined and vigorous effort 
 in educational work; an honest purpose to secure 
 improvement in methods of instruction, in classifi- 
 cation, and in the details of school management. 
 
6 North-Easiern Ohio 
 
 called it into existence. The co-operation of all 
 engaged as superintendents or teachers, of all on 
 whom might rest responsibility for the condition of 
 the schools ; sympathy begotten of personal associ- 
 ation and acquaintance with one another; mutual 
 helpfulness resulting from comparison of views, 
 plans and experiences,— these were the objects in 
 view; — in fair measure they have been the prac- 
 tical results of an uninterrupted experience of over 
 six years. 
 
 That the. organization might have the outward 
 sign of an existence, and that there might be a few 
 rules by which its members should govern them- 
 selves, the meeting adopted the following Constitu- 
 tion and By-Laws : 
 
 CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Article I. The object of this Association shall 
 be the professional improvement of its members, 
 the advancement, in true educational progress, of 
 the schools of this section of the State, and the 
 dissemination of correct educational ideas. 
 
 Article II. The Association shall be known as 
 The North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association. 
 
 Article III. The officers of the Association 
 shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, 
 a Treasurer, and an Executive Committee of three 
 members, who shall hold their offices for one year, 
 
Teachers' slssocialion. 7 
 
 or until their successors shall have been elected. 
 Their duties shall be the same as usually devolve 
 upon like officers in similar organizations. 
 
 Article IV. Any teacher, or other friend of 
 education, may become a member of this Associa- 
 tion. The membership fee shall be one dollar, to be 
 paid to the Treasurer of the Association annually. 
 
 Article V. This Constitution may be amended 
 at any regular meeting of the Association, by a 
 majority vote of all the members present, notice of 
 the proposed amendment having been given, in 
 writing, at any previous meeting. 
 
 BY-LAWS. 
 
 Article I. The regular meetings of the Associ- 
 ation shall be held in Cleveland, unless otherwise 
 ordered by a vote of the Association, on the second 
 Saturdays of February, April, June, October and 
 December. 
 
 Article II. The annual election of officers shall 
 be held at the regular meeting in December of each 
 year. 
 
 Article III. These By-Laws may be changed 
 at any regular meeting, by a majority vote of the 
 members present and voting. 
 
 The following are the officers elected for the first 
 year: 
 
 President — Thomas W. Haevet, Superintendent of 
 Schools, Painesville. 
 
8 7(orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Vice-President — Samuel Findlet, Superintendent of 
 Schools, Akron. 
 
 Secretary — H. B. Purness, Snperintetident of Schools, 
 Warren. 
 
 Treasurer — 0. S. Beagg, Cleveland. 
 
 Executive Committee— K. J. Eiokoef, Superintendent 
 of Schools, Cleveland ; G. IST. Cakkuthbrs, Superintendent 
 of Schools, Elyria; E. W. Stevenson, Superintendent of 
 Schools, Norwalk. 
 
 The first regular meeting of the Association was 
 held, according to the provisions of the Constitution, 
 on the second Saturday of December (Dec. 11), 1869. 
 This first meeting was largely attended by the super- 
 intendents and teachers of this section of the State. 
 The programme was as follows : 
 
 I. Inaugural Address of the President. 
 II. The Model Teacher — 8. Findlet, Superintendent of 
 
 Schools, Akron. 
 III. Discussion. 
 
 rV. Eeport on the Condition of the Public Schools of 
 Ohio — Hon. W. D. Henkle, State CommissionBr 
 of Common Schools. 
 V. Discussion of Eeport. 
 
 Some account of this first meeting may prove to 
 be of interest. The inaugural address of the Presi- 
 dent, Hon. T. W. Harvey, then Superintendent of 
 Schools, Painesville, a synopsis of which appears as 
 the first paper of this volume, marked out important 
 
Teachers' plssociaiion. 9 
 
 work, to the earnest consideration of which the 
 Association at once addressed itself. President 
 Harvey called attention to the importance of con- 
 sidering such questions as, I. The improvement 
 of our country schools. II. A uniform classifica- 
 tion of our town and city schools. III. A Course 
 of Study arranged with reference to the classifica- 
 tion. IV. Practical and disciplinary studies. V. 
 New Methods of instruction ; and VI. Moral and 
 religious instruction. 
 
 The address was received with much favor by all, 
 many of the members publicly expressing their 
 hearty approval of the plan of work indicated. Mr. 
 Findley's paper was an able one, indicating with 
 peculiar distinctness what the true teacher should 
 be ; what he should not be ; what agencies essential 
 to the thorough training of teachers were wanting in 
 our State; the duty of the State to provide good 
 teachers for its children ; and lamenting that there 
 were not at least half a dozen good, well organized, 
 thoroughly equipped State Normal Schools in Ohio. 
 
 The report of Hon. W. D. Henkle was largely 
 devoted to the pressing importance of improving 
 the condition of the schools in the rural districts. 
 The school system of the State was explained at 
 length. Attention was called to the great difficulty 
 
10 Morth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 experienced in obtaining accurate reports and reli- 
 able statistics. Many of the official reports received 
 at the oflace of the School Commissioner were stated 
 to be practically worthless. Mr. Henkle recom- 
 mended, as the only adequate agencies for the 
 correction of the principal evils retarding progress 
 in our common schools, County Supervision and 
 State Normal Schools. 
 
 After considerable discussion, evincing great 
 interest in the subjects presented, the following 
 resolution was adopted: 
 
 Whereas, It is obvious and generally conceded 
 that the schools in the rural districts of our State 
 have not shared, to any great extent, in the progress 
 enjoyed by the schools of our cities and towns ; and, 
 
 Whereas, It is believed that the progress of the 
 schools in our cities and towns is largely due to 
 intelligent supervision ; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That we, the members of the North- 
 Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association, do most earn- 
 estly petition the Legislature of our State for the 
 speedy adoption of such measures as shall best 
 secure to all the schools of the State the benefits of 
 intelligent supervision. 
 
 In the discussion of the above resolution most 
 of the members pronounced themselves as having 
 occupied substantially the position taken by the 
 
Teachers' Association. 11 
 
 resolution, for many years, and the President, in 
 a most felicitous speech, announced his hearty 
 acquiescence in a doctrine not hitherto held by 
 him, as of first importance, and pronounced himself 
 an advocate of County Superintendency. 
 
 Hon. Z. Richards, Superintendent of Schools, • 
 Washington,. D. C, being present, accepted an 
 invitation to participate in the proceedings of the 
 day. 
 
 On motion of Hon. W. D. Henkle the following 
 committees were appointed: 
 
 Committee on Country Schools — S. G. Baknard, M. C. 
 Stevens, J. F. Lukens. 
 
 Committee on Classification — A. J. Rickoff, H. B. 
 PuKNESS, 6. N. Carkuthers. 
 
 Committee on Course of Study — R. W. Stevenson, I. 
 M. Clemens, M. C, Stevens. 
 
 Committee on Practical and Disciplinary Studies — W. P. 
 HussEY, Aaron Schuyler, C. H. Roberts. 
 
 Committee on New Methods.— Ajms.. Forbes, W. P. 
 HussEY, A. J. Rickoff. 
 
 Committee on Moral Instruction Lee, Samuel 
 
 FiNDLEY, Aaron Schuyler. 
 
 The Association adjourned to the parlors of the 
 Weddell House for the purpose of social improve- 
 ment, and that the members might the more easily 
 become acquainted with one another. This first 
 
12 JiorlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 meeting was an important one— impqrtant in itself 
 considered, but more important still for its influence 
 on subsequent meetings. High ground was taken 
 at the very opening ; important questions were pre- 
 sented for investigation ; experience has proven that 
 the first meeting was a representati'oe one. 
 
 The most important, work performed by the 
 Association at the meetings held in February, and in 
 April following, was the consideration of the reports 
 presented by the various committees appointed at 
 first meeting. The committees on Classification, on 
 Course of Study and on Studies united and divided 
 the work among themselves. The result of their 
 careful deliberations, and of the action of the Asso- 
 ciation is to be found in the following Course of 
 Study adopted, and recommended to superintendents 
 of schools and to boards of education throughout 
 North -Eastern Ohio. 
 
Tea'cKers' yissoctation. 13 
 
 COURSE OF STUDY FOR GRADED SCHOOLS. 
 
 PEIMARY SCHOOL COURSE. 
 
 FOUETH GKADK 
 
 READiiirG. — Cards and Primer completed. 
 
 Spelliitg. — All words employed in the lessons of the grade. 
 
 Writibtg. — Roman and script letters, on slates, and with 
 pencil on paper. 
 
 Arithmetic. — Concrete numbers. Counting with and with- 
 out objects to fifty. Addition, subtraction, multiplica- 
 tion, and diyision of numbers. No number to be 
 introduced greater than twenty. Notation of tens 
 taught objectively. No exercises involving two or 
 more different processes to be required. 
 
 Language. — Attention to be paid to pronunciation, and 
 to the correction of common errors in the use of lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Objects; — Lessons on the human body, sound, size, weight, 
 color, place, form, and mammals. 
 
 Moral Instructiost. — Lessons inculcating obedience, 
 order, love, pity, etc., from pictures and narratives. 
 
 Drawing. — Under direction of the Superintendent. 
 
 THIRD GRADE. 
 
 Reading. — First Reader. 
 Spelling. — See previous grade. 
 Writing. — See previous grade. 
 Dravting. — See previous grade. 
 
14 J^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Arithmetic. — Exercises, mental and written, in addition, 
 subtractioD, multiplication, and division of abstract 
 and concrete numbers to eighty-one. Notation and 
 numeration of hundreds, tens, and units illustrated 
 objectively. Roman numerals to L. 
 
 Language. — Putting words into sentences; discovering 
 new words with use of pictures, etc. 
 
 Objects. — Lessons on sound, size, weight, color, place, 
 form, mammals, birds. 
 
 MoKAL iNSTRUCTioiir. — Illustrating politeness, cheerful- 
 ness, kindness, forgiveness, etc., as in Fourth Grade. 
 
 SECOlirD GRADE. 
 
 Reading. — Second Reader. 
 Spelling.-— See previous grade. 
 Writing.— ^See previous grade. 
 Drawing. — See previous grade. 
 
 Arithmetic. — Addition and multiplication continued. 
 Subtraction taught and illustrated objectively. Exer- 
 eises in subtraction, minuend not to exceed thousands. 
 Notation of simple proper fractions. Exercises in 
 single-step reductions (descending), on such parts of 
 tables as may be derived from object lessons. 
 
 Language. — Same as in Third Grade, with modifications 
 to denote time, place, degree, etc. 
 
 Objects. — Lessons on size, weight, color, place, form, mam- 
 mals, birds. The discovei-y of qualities of objects; 
 comparison of objects by means of their qualities. 
 
 Moral Instruction. — Illustrating habits of perseverance, 
 self-control, etc. 
 
Teachers' Association. 15 
 
 Lessons Pkeparatort to Geogeapht.— Location and 
 "direction of things in. tlie school-room and of the 
 neighboring streets and public buildings. Direction 
 of some of the principal objects throughout the city 
 or Tillage. The use of maps illustrated by maps of 
 the school-room, school-yard, and the neighboring 
 streets, drawn upon the blackboard by the teacher 
 and pupil. The map of the town or city. Direction 
 as indicated by the map. 
 
 FIEST GRADE. 
 
 Reading. — Third Eeader. 
 Spelling. — See previous grade. 
 Writing. — See previous grade. 
 Drawing. — See previous grade.. 
 
 Arithmetic. — Exercises in addition, subtraction, multipli- 
 cation, and short division. Reductions to correspond 
 with object lessons. Simple calculation of surfaces of 
 rectangles, two sides being given ; of triangles, base 
 and perpendicular height being given, and of the con- 
 tents of parallelopipedons, dimensions not to exceed 
 ten. Applications to reduction of fractions, and single- 
 . step reductions of compound numbers to correspond 
 with object lessons. All concrete examples to be 
 analyzed. 
 
 Language. — Name-words, action-words connected with 
 the idea of past, present, and future ; the simple state- 
 ment, with have, le, and with other verbs; quality- 
 words; the name- word modified; quality-word modi- 
 fied; number-word; limitiog-word ; action-word mod- 
 ified to denote where, when, how, and what. 
 
 Objects. — At discretion of Superintendent. 
 
16 Korlh-EasUm Ohio 
 
 Geography.— The map of the State of Ohio to be taught 
 with the aid of the black-board. The production's of 
 the State and pursuits of the people. General lessons 
 on the physical features of the surrounding country. 
 Lessons on the United States, and oral lessons on the 
 map of the world. 
 
 GEAMMAR SCHOOL COURSE. 
 
 FOUKTH GRADE. 
 
 Reading. — Fourth Reader. 
 
 Spelling. — See preylous grade. 
 
 Drawing. — See previous grade. 
 
 Writing. — In copy-book with pen. 
 
 Arithmetic. — Long division. Principles of numbers to be 
 developed by the teacher. Federal money. The iden- 
 tity of this system of notation with the decimal system 
 pointed out and illustrated. Reduction, and addition 
 and subtraction of compound numbers. Cancellation 
 and Cloth and Beer measure to be omitted. 
 
 Language. — Ifouns — number, gender, and classes of; 
 verbs — number of; adjectives, adverbs. The element, 
 a word; the element, compound; conjunction, co- 
 ordinate. The element, a group of words; phrase, 
 preposition. Arrangement of words in the statement. 
 Pronoun — Person of; case— nominative and objective; 
 of pronoun with verb, with preposition, nominative 
 and objective ; cases of nouns with verb and preposi- 
 tion. Copula, with the eleven forms of the verb to be. 
 Verbs — transitive and intransitive ; number and per- 
 son of verb. 
 
 Objects. — See previous grades. 
 
Teachers' :^ssocialion. 17 
 
 Gbogkapht. — The CeDtral States, commencing at Ohio 
 and proceeding thence to contiguous States, with oral 
 instruction upon terms used ia describing the physical 
 features, and those used in the study of mathematical 
 geography. The Middle- Atlantic, ITew-England and 
 South-Atlantic States. The United States completed, 
 with review of definitions. 
 
 (Mechanical Powers. — Levers, Balance, Steel-yard, Cen- 
 ter of Gravity. Equilibrium of Bodies. Wheel and 
 Axle. Pulley — different forms. Inclined Plane. Wedge. 
 Screw. Practical application of each. 
 
 Botany. — Pall term, Leaves and Stems. Spring term 
 Inflorescence and Flowers.) 
 
 THIRD GRADE. 
 
 Reading. — Selections from Fifth Reader. 
 Spelling. — See previous grades. 
 Drawing. — See previous grades. 
 Writing.— See Fourth Grammar School Grade. 
 
 Arithmetic. — Multiplication and division of compound 
 numbers. The subject of factoring, G. 0. D. and L. 
 C. M. to be developed by the teacher. The develop- 
 ment of fractions, terms, simple, proper and improper 
 fractions; principles of fractions; reduction to lowest 
 terms; compound to simple; common denominator. 
 Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and 
 review of fractions of simple numbers. 
 
18 Mrlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 Language. — The word element — prinoipal and subordi- 
 nate, subject, predicate; members of compound sen- 
 tences. Adjective element — a word, classification and 
 comparisou of adjectives — ^possessive case of nouns and 
 pronouns. Adverbial element — a word, classification 
 developed as the adjective. The element, a phrase ; the 
 phrase adjective and adverbial. The element, a modi- 
 fying clause. Subordinate conjunctions ; complex sen- 
 tences. 
 
 Objects. — Oral lessons in Natural History, with special 
 I'eference to classification. 
 
 Geography. — The United States reviewed. North and 
 South America. Geographical abbreviations. Europe, 
 Asia and Africa. Geographical abbreviations. Aus- 
 tralia. The entire subject reviewed. Geographical 
 abbreviations. 
 
 (Propekties op Matter. — General. Specific. Illustra- 
 tions of each. 
 
 Molecular Forces. — Cohesion. Adhesion. Capillary 
 Attraction. Currents, etc. Gravity. Weight. 
 
 Pressure of Liquids.— Hydraulic Press. Specific Grav- 
 ity — practical use of 
 
 Plotatioit. — Principles and conditions of. Application to 
 ships, fishes, etc. Different kinds of water wheels. 
 
 Botany. — Fall term. Fruits. Spring term, Roots.) 
 
 second grade. 
 
 Reading. — Fifth Reader. 
 Spelling. — See previous grades. 
 Writing. —See previous grades. 
 Drawing. — At discretion of Superintendent. 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 19 
 
 Arithmetic. — Decimals, simple and compound; their 
 relation to common fractions to be kept in view. 
 Ratio and proportion and aliquots; percentage to 
 interest, with review of arithmetic as far as studied. 
 
 Language. — Relative pronoun; conjunctive adverbs; verbs, 
 tense and mode; interrogative words. Review of sub- 
 ject as far as studied. 
 
 Objects. — See preceding grade. 
 
 Geogbapht. — Review to correspond to work of fourth. 
 
 (Pneumatics. — Pressure of Atmosphere. Barometer. Air 
 Pump. Balloons. Common Pump. Forcing Pump. 
 Fire Engine, etc. 
 
 Acoustics. — Sound. Quality and intensity of echo. Noise, 
 and musical toae. Diatonic Scale. Musical instru- 
 ments. 
 
 Optics. — Light, sources of. Shadows. Mirrors. Lenses. 
 Colors. Spsctrum. Optical instruments. 
 
 Zoology. — Vertebrates. Mammals; Birds; Reptiles; Ba- 
 traehians; Fishes.) 
 
 FIRST GRADE. 
 
 Reading. — U. S. History. Selections with a view to elocu- 
 tionary drill. 
 
 Spelling.— See previous grades. 
 
 Drawing. — Under the direction of the Superintendent. 
 
 Arithmetic. — The whole subject completed and reviewed, 
 omitting permutation and alligation alternate. 
 
 Language. — Abridged forms — apposition, phrases for 
 clauses, participles, case absolute, interjectioas; com- 
 plete analysis of sentences; punctuation. Review in 
 order of text-book, with classification. 
 
 Objects. — See preceding grade. 
 
20 J\fort?i-Easlern Ohio 
 
 Geogkapht. — Eeview to correspond to work of Third 
 Grade, 
 
 (Heat.— Sources. Effects upon liquids and solids. Prac- 
 tical applications and uses. Thermometer. Steam 
 Engine. Clouds, dew, etc. 
 
 Electeicitt.— Properties of Magnets. Compass. Devel- 
 opment of different kinds. Telegraph — fire-alarm, 
 and other practical applications. 
 
 Zoology. — Articulates. Insects; Crustaceans; "Worms. 
 Mollusks. Radiates.) 
 
 General review of the Course. 
 
 It is recommended that all concrete problems in arith- 
 metic be analyzed, and that the " Eule " in each particular 
 case be learned, if at all, only upon leaving the subject for 
 the next in the order. 
 
 It is also recommended that all subjects in language 
 be synthetically developed, until the first grades of the 
 Grammar School be reached, when analysis should be 
 prominently developed. 
 
 It is further recommended that daily exercise be had in 
 impromptu composition, with special attention to capitals, 
 spelling and punctuation. 
 
 It is earnestly recommended that frequent exercises in 
 Reading be had in other than text-books, and that peri- 
 odicals be used for this purpose in all, except the Fourth 
 and Third Primary Grades. 
 
 Physics. — About half of each year throughout the Gram- 
 mar Course, according to the plan indicated in the 
 outline previously submitted by the committee. 
 
Teachers' :flssocialion. 3t 
 
 Botany. — Eemaining time for Grades and D, according 
 to the plan indicated in Miss Youman's First Book of 
 Botany, with the addition of subject of Fruits in the 
 Fall Term. 
 
 Zoology. — Eemaining time for Grades A and B, according 
 to plan indicated in Testnby's Natural History of 
 Animals. 
 
 N. B.— So much of this " Course of Study " as is included within 
 parentheses is only recommended by the Committee appointed to revise 
 the Course of Study. It has not been adopted. 
 
22 
 
 J^orth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 u 
 o 
 
 l-H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 «- 
 
 
 
 ■S 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 s Poems, 
 of Person 
 
 laracters. 
 
 
 
 .3 
 
 o 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 1 
 
 .3 
 
 
 i 
 
 CO 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 1— ( 
 
 
 ■s 
 
 g 
 
 s 
 
 -.3 
 
 
 u 
 
 -fi 1 S! fi 
 
 
 «' 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 .a 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 
 o 
 
 Milto 
 
 Sketch! 
 
 with ( 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 in 
 
 
 
 s . 
 
 
 <l 
 
 g IS 
 
 £■ 
 
 
 
 ■g 
 
 
 
 Spy. 
 Perso 
 acters 
 
 
 P4 
 
 Ij- 
 
 O 
 
 >. 
 
 >. 1 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 
 s 
 
 B 
 
 §■§1 
 
 « 
 
 
 '" s a 
 
 
 " 
 
 ^2 
 g s 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 < 
 
 n 
 
 cd 
 
 
 o 
 
 Coope: 
 tches 1 
 ithCh 
 
 
 H 
 
 Q < 
 
 
 
 B 
 
 
 
 • 1 ^ 
 
 
 »• s 
 
 1 1 
 
 ill 
 
 S "^ 
 
 n 
 
 o 
 
 SB 
 
 Trigonometry 
 
 and 
 
 Surveying. 
 
 Is 
 
 •2§| 
 s ™ 
 
 o 
 .2' 
 
 B 
 < 
 
 i 
 6 
 
 Tennyson's Poems. 
 
 Re-written Stories 
 or Essays and 
 Original Stories. 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 5^ 
 
 
 
 
 M «* 
 
 
 
 
 .S 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 
 a> a 
 
 
 
 
 .ti 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 ^ u 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 (fl 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 y > 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 a 
 S 
 o 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 p< 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 1 s 
 
 
 pi 
 
 C3 
 
 i4 
 
 
 5 
 
 "2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 Dicken 
 
 Narratii 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 . i 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 (n 
 O 
 
 P4 
 
 pj 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 [lorne: Tai 
 ood Tales 
 ipt'nofPl 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 e 
 
 o 
 O 
 
 .£3 
 
 i 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 en 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 (5 
 
 
 
 
 1 ' i 
 
 
 l-H 
 
 
 (d 
 
 
 !2; 
 
 
 
 
 K O 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^' 
 
 
 >> 
 
 
 
 
 a tJ 
 
 
 
 
 cd 
 
 
 rd 
 
 
 
 
 (M u 
 
 
 
 
 E 
 
 
 §■ 
 
 
 
 
 ? . S 
 
 
 "• 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 : Tales 
 raveler, 
 t'nofO 
 
 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 ■2 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 M H .H- 
 
 
 
 
 'S) 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 .3 5 
 
 
 
 
 B 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 > U) 
 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 hi oi 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 English Litera- 
 ture, Declamation 
 S AND Composition. 
 
 I Lesson pr.w'kforall 
 
 
 
 I-I H 
 
 s 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 1 
 
 s 
 
 S 
 
 Z 
 td 
 
 en 
 
 
 < 
 
 g 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 e 
 
 Hi 
 
 B.2 
 O t* 
 
Teachers' jlssociation. 
 
 33 
 
 Q 
 W 
 O 
 & 
 ►J 
 u 
 2; 
 o 
 u 
 
 I 
 
 h-i 
 o 
 o 
 W 
 o 
 
 oi 
 O 
 
 
 E 
 S 
 8 
 
 
 *3) 
 
 .. 
 
 .a 
 a 
 
 
 1 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 ipeare. 
 
 rgumenta- 
 and 
 native. 
 
 l-H 
 
 1 
 3 
 
 
 ^ . 
 
 1 
 
 C 
 1 
 
 
 A S? *-• cj 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 pi 
 < 
 
 p< 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J3 
 
 ^ 
 
 u\ 
 
 I ^ 
 
 j3 
 
 
 
 in 
 
 
 B 
 
 „■ S i 
 
 >• 
 
 O 
 
 ^ 1 t 
 
 .-2 ^ S 
 
 1 
 g 
 
 ^.? 
 « 1 
 
 "o 
 u 
 O 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 w 
 o 
 
 
 • ^ 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 cd 
 
 a 
 
 
 »■ !«. 
 
 
 >. 
 
 
 
 
 pC 
 
 i 
 
 
 ■S -3 & 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 '^' 
 
 
 
 • s „■ 
 
 1^ 
 
 3 § S 
 
 
 Pi 
 
 1 
 
 "o 
 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 B 
 
 CO ?^ « 
 
 
 2 E -o 
 
 
 4J 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 E 
 
 
 ^ ^ S 
 
 
 S 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 d 
 
 
 1 f j2- S 
 
 
 
 .a 
 E 
 
 u 
 
 V 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 i 
 
 ti 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 S 
 
 o 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 >» 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 « s 
 
 . < 
 
 . ^ J= 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 g E . 
 
 Ah o m C 
 
 o ° S E 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 .a 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 Woo m 
 
 
 o 
 
 u 
 
 o 
 
 u 
 
 o 
 
 
 s, 
 
 1 i^" 
 
 bJD o *^ 
 
 u 
 
 "« ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 o o o , 
 o o 
 
 C/3 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J <! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 u C 
 
 
 1 s^J 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 ji 
 
 
 i 
 
 U O 
 
 ■s '5 
 
 "' 
 
 
 i 
 
 "a 
 
 s 
 
 
 g 
 
 •tSS !5 
 
 
 1 ill 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 o 
 
 •^ E ' .S 
 °| 1 
 
 j3 .a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 O B 
 
 
 >-* 
 
 Pi 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 i 
 
 td 
 
 
 T 
 
 I 
 
 iii 1 
 
 « H C ^ 
 M •< w ^ 
 
 
 W 3 
 
 g ? a 
 
 
 < 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 U 
 
 u 
 
 < 
 
 
 ^' 1 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 CO 
 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 30" § 
 15 jrQ « 
 
 
 5 ^ 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 % 
 
 X W 2 o 
 
 
 h1 h 
 
 
 « 
 
 m 
 
 
 ■^ 
 
 H "5 " 
 
 H.3 
 
 S.S 
 
24 7\forlh-Easiern Ohio 
 
 The Course of Study thus recommended was never, 
 probably, "wholly adopted by any board of educa- 
 tion; was never, perhaps, as a whole, recommended 
 for adoption by any superintendent. Each town, 
 and every superintendent found something desirable 
 in a course of study not found in the one recom- 
 mended; something recommended not attainable or 
 desirable, it may be, in the schools to be provided 
 for. While it was not expected that the recom- 
 mendation of the Association would be adopted 
 without such slight modifications as special locali- 
 ties might deem wise, it was yet hoped that, inas- 
 much as the object of school training is substantially 
 the same in all places, and the same studies produce 
 substantially the same results in city or village, the 
 Course of Study, if wisely prepared, could, and 
 would be, very generally adopted in its essential 
 features. 
 
 The advantages expected from approximate uni- 
 formity were numerous. The experiences of each 
 superintendent and teacher would be more valua- 
 ble to others; the amount of work which could 
 justly be demanded of any grade, in a given time, 
 could be more satisfactorily determined; pupils 
 removing from one town to another would be reason- 
 ably certain to find a place for which their previous 
 
Teachers' Association. 35 
 
 study would have prepared them; the recommenda- 
 tions of superintendents concerning such pupils 
 would become valuable aids to the authorities 
 receiving them, in proper classification. These and 
 other important advantages were expected as the 
 results of essential uniformity in studies pursued. 
 
 The recommendation of the Association was gen- 
 erally received with favor, and it was not long ere 
 the various cities and towns so modified their 
 courses of study that they were substantially alike 
 on essentials, both as to subjects included and the 
 order in which these subjects were to be pursued. 
 
 At the meetings held while the Course of Study 
 was under consideration, model lessons in many of 
 the branches taught were given. Classes were 
 brought before the Association, and exercises con- 
 ducted by the regular teachers of these classes, 
 the pupils being closely questioned by members. 
 Full discussions generally followed these exercises. 
 Classes in Reading, in Language, in Object Lessons, 
 in Arithmetic, in English Grammar, in History, etc. , 
 were thus brought before the Association, and the 
 exercise in each case subjected to thorough criticism 
 as to the value of the method pursued, and not 
 unfrequently as to the manner in which the method 
 was presented. 
 
2G J^orVi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 The same practice was continued occasionally for 
 a number of years. Of the great practical value of 
 these illustrative exercises and model lessons, seri- 
 ous doubt has never been entertained. They were 
 valuable in themselves, as giving practical illustra- 
 tion of modes of teaching, and not less valuable as 
 illustrating the spirit of the recommended Course of 
 Study. 
 
 Much as was accomplished in this way, it was 
 very generally felt that more was needed that the 
 recommendation of the Association might accom- 
 plish its fullest measure of possible good. A large 
 number of teachers engaged in the schools at any 
 one time, are without experience in the work of 
 graded schools. They have difficulty in compre- 
 hending what is necessary to do the work of one 
 grade in such a way as to prepare the classes in 
 their charge for the work of the next higher grade. 
 Many who had experience in schools but partially 
 graded, had but imperfect knowledge of how the 
 recommendations found in the prescribed course 
 could be realized in their daily work in the schools. 
 Imperfect knowledge of methods was believed to be 
 a serious hindrance. 
 
 In the larger cities. Annual Institutes and regular 
 Teachers' Meetings had accomplished much in the 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 27 
 
 way of improving methods of instruction. In the 
 smaller cities, towns and villages these agencies had 
 not been deemed generally practicable. The County 
 Teachers' Institute could not be relied on to provide 
 adequate agencies for the desired work. It has been 
 found that there is ever, in these County Institutes, 
 a tendency to complain that too much of the instruc- 
 tion given at them has special reference or is ot value 
 only to graded schools. Any systematic effort to 
 train teachers in the work involved in carrying 
 out the recommendations of the Course of Study, 
 was impossible through the agency of the County 
 Institutes. 
 
 Yet, unless the great body of teachers engaged 
 in the graded schools of the country, could become 
 familiar with the work involved in the Course, and 
 the best methods by which the work might be done, 
 permanency and efficiency could not be expected. 
 The schools would be no nearer uniformity than 
 heretofore. 
 
 These considerations, and others of similar nature, 
 led the Association, at its meeting in April, 1870, to 
 adopt the following resolution : 
 
 Resolved, That it be proposed by this Association 
 to the towns and cities in North -Eastern Ohio, that 
 an Institute be held in Cleveland, commencing 
 
28 'NorlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 August 29th, and continuing two weeks, the object 
 of which shall be, the preparation of, teachers for the 
 special work of the several grades of the schools 
 thereof; and that the towns and ■cities be requested 
 to unite in this eiiterprise, arid contribute one dollar 
 for each teacher employed in their schools, for the 
 payment of necessary expenses. , , 
 
 A Committee on Teachers' Institute was then 
 appointed. Messrs. C. L. Hotze, of Cleveland, S. 
 Findley, of Akron, Thos. W. Harvey, of Paines- 
 ville, H. M. James, of Cleveland, and C. H. Roberts, 
 of Geneva, were appointed on said committee, and 
 entrusted with the task of working out a Ttiodus 
 operandi for the Institute. 
 
 At the next meeting, in June, the committee laid 
 the following programme before the Association : 
 
 The committee entrusted with drafting a plan for 
 the Teachers' Institute to be held in the Central 
 High School rooms of this city, from August 29th to 
 September 9th, inclusive, are of the opinion that the 
 subjects to be taught in the Institute should be the 
 most important among those of the Course of Study 
 recently adopted by this Association, and already 
 introduced in the schools of the neighboring towns — 
 Arithmetic, Language and Grammar, Geography, 
 Object Lessons, Penmanship, Reading and Singing. 
 
 The committee have classified the eight grades 
 of our Primary and Grammar Schools into four 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 29 
 
 classes — the teachers of D and C Primary Grades to 
 constitute the fourth class of the Institute; B and A 
 Primary to constitute the third; D and C Grammar 
 Grades to constitute the second ; and B and A Gram- 
 mar to constitute the first. 
 
 The programme of the da,ily exercises to be as 
 follows : 
 
 FOR THE COMMON SCHOOL BRANCHES. 
 
 A. M. I. II. III. , IV. 
 
 8:50— 9:80 Language. Singing. Penmanship Arithmetic. 
 
 and Reading. . 
 
 9:35—10:15 Penmanship Geography. Arithmetic. Singing. 
 
 and Reading. 
 10:85—11:15 Penmanship Object Lessons. Language, 
 
 and Reading. 
 
 11:20—12:00 Singing. Object Lessons. Language. Object Lessons. 
 
 p. M. 
 
 2:80 — 3:10 Object Lessons. Arithmetic. Geography. 
 
 8:15- 8:56 Arithmetic. Language. Singing. Penmanship and 
 
 Reading. 
 
 FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL BRANCHES: 
 
 Teachers of High Schools are divided into four 
 
 classes : 
 
 A. M. 
 
 I, II. 
 
 Ill, IV. 
 
 8:50— 9:30 
 
 Trigonometry and Surveying. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 10:85-11:15 
 
 Botany. 
 
 Latin. 
 
 9:85—10:15 
 
 History^ , 
 
 Algebra. 
 
 11:20-12:00 
 
 
 Geometry, 
 
 p. M. 
 
 2:80— 3:10 
 
 Astronomy. 
 
 Object Lessons, 
 
 8:15— 8:55 
 
 Geology. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 This report was unanimously adopted, and the 
 committee requested to send out circulars to the 
 boards of education and superintendents in the 
 
30 ?/orth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 several cities and towns within the district of the 
 Association. 
 
 A committee of reception — Messrs James, Forbes 
 and Day, of Cleveland — was entrusted with the care 
 of procuring boarding-places for the teachers from 
 abroad. During vacation numerous answers to the 
 letters of invitation were received; also applications 
 from many teachers who desired to attend, although 
 their boards, for some reason or other, had failed to 
 make provision for them. 
 
 On the appointed day, August 29th, about three 
 hundred and fifty teachers assembled, and, being 
 divided into the classes indicated in the programme, 
 passed to their respective rooms, which they kept 
 during the entire session of the Institute. Printed 
 cards, containing the programme of daily exercises, 
 the plan of classification of the teachers, the assign- 
 ment of rooms and minor details, were distributed 
 and the work was commenced. 
 
 THE CORPS OF INSTRUCTORS. 
 
 For the Qommon School Branches. — Thomas 
 W. Harvey, Painesville, English Grammar; Mrs. 
 Mary H. Smith, New York, Geography and Object 
 Lessons for HI and IV, and U. S. History for I; 
 Miss M. S. Cooper, Oswego, Language for III and 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 31 
 
 lY, and Object Lessons for I and II ; Alex. Forbes, 
 Cleveland, Arithmetic ; A. P. Root, Cleveland, Pen- 
 manship ; N. Coe Stewart, Cleveland, Singing ; A. J. 
 Rickoff and W. Higley, both of Cleveland, Reading. 
 
 For the High School Branches. — S. G. Williams, 
 Cleveland, Surveying, Latin, Geology, etc.; Warren 
 Higley, Cleveland, Algebra; C. L. Hotze, Cleveland, 
 History, Physics and Composition. 
 
 Probably no other institute of the kind has ever 
 been held. Certainly nothing of the kind had ever 
 before been attempted in Ohio. It was decided upon 
 as an agency in a new work — that of rendering pos- 
 sible and probable the adoption of a substantially 
 uniform Course of Study in the cities, towns and 
 villages of a considerable portion of the State ; that 
 the agency should itself be a new thing, is not 
 strange. 
 
 From all the leading towns of North-Eastern Ohio 
 came superintendents and teachers, — from Akron, 
 Ravenna, Kent, Warren, Massillon, Canton, Paines- 
 ville, Geneva, Ashtabula, Elyria, Wellington, Oberlin, 
 Norwalk, and from other places. Many teachers, 
 not occupying positions under boards of education 
 who gave official encouragement to the enterprise, 
 attended during the whole session, losing salary for 
 the benefits of the Institute. All who attended, from 
 
32 l^orlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 places other than the city of Cleveland, iijourred 
 very considerable extra expense in railroad fare and 
 board-bills. The work of the Institute, after the first 
 half day, was as well regulated as is 'the daily work 
 of a well-organized school. There was no loss of 
 time — no absence of members. The entire company 
 attended as regularly, as punctually as they could be 
 asked to do, in their respective schools as teachers. 
 
 The fruits of these two weeks of earnest work 
 were all that could have been desired — very much 
 greater than what was anticipated. 
 
 The whole Course of Study was carefully consid- 
 ered — the best way in which its various recommen- 
 dations could be realized, was carefully pointed 
 out. Everything was submitted to the test of experi- 
 ence, and unworthy recommendations were made to 
 appear so. With the fullest discussion of every 
 point, there was yet no captious fault-finding, simply 
 for the sake of opposing. Thus this great company 
 of teachers became, for the time being, schools of 
 earnest pupils of all departments. Thus they were 
 able to test the wisdom of the Course of Study, and 
 of the methods urged for carrying out its provisions 
 through all its parts. 
 
 But there were other, and not less important, 
 advantages arising from this gathering together of 
 
Teachers' }lssocialion. 33 
 
 the teachers. In the ordinary gatherings at the 
 meeti^igs of the Association, the advantages are 
 much in the ratio of acquaintance. This Institute 
 presented an unusually fdvorable opportunity for 
 teachers becoming acquainted. .Wo one ever knows 
 the worth or worthlessness of what another does or 
 says, unless fully acquainted. Many a word passes 
 for little, which, were the experience which begets 
 it known, would be of service. By becoming 
 acquainted, the probabilities of mutual helpfulness 
 at subsequent meetings were largely increased. 
 Besides, the mutual exchange of views, experi- 
 ences, modes of teaching and control, as they were 
 discussed during intervals of work — as they were 
 related by the way to or from daily sessions, were 
 among the most valuable experiences of the time. 
 
 Young and inexperienced teachers went into their 
 schools with definite ideas of what should be done, 
 and with some knowledge of method of doing. 
 Doubtless this class of teachers were sensible of 
 having gained more than others. All, however, 
 gained much, and at the end of the session all were 
 tired— ^tired from the work, not tired of the work. 
 
 The interest felt in this Institute wns not confined 
 to the section whose teachers attended the session, 
 but excited much interest in other portions of our 
 
 3 
 
34 . mrlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 State. Indeed, so great and so general was the 
 interest in the Institute, so frequent were inquiries 
 made concerning its organization and its work, that 
 Hon. W. D. Henkle, State Commissioner of Com- 
 mon Schools, in order to answer the many questions 
 reaching his office concerning it, secured a brief 
 synopsis of the work done, and incorporated the 
 same in the Seventeenth Annual Report of the State 
 Commissioner of Common Schools. 
 
 The synopsis gives, very briefly, the work 
 attempted. In this synopsis, methods of present- 
 ation are given rather than details of work done. 
 Just what amount of work was done at that Insti- 
 tute could prove of no material service to any one 
 after so great a lapse of time. But the methods 
 recommended, so far as they are correct, must be of 
 abiding value. For this reason it is believed that, 
 to those who attended, this account will be of inter- 
 est; and to many who have come into our ranks 
 since that time, it cannot be without much value. 
 It is given here as it was printed in the Commis- 
 sioner's Report. 
 
 If on no other ground, as a most important item 
 in the history of the Association, its right to a place 
 will be recognized. 
 
Teachers' Association. 35 
 
 SYLLABUS OF INSTRUCTION.— COMMON 
 SCHOOL BRANCHES. 
 
 ARITHMETIC, 
 
 FOURTH CLASS. 
 
 Fourth Orade Primary Schools — Course of 
 Study. — "Concrete numbers, counting with and 
 without objects to fifty. Addition, subtraction, 
 multiplication and division of numbers. No num- 
 ber to be introduced greater than twenty. Notation 
 of tens taught objectively. No exercises involving 
 two or more different processes to be required." 
 
 Third Grade Primary Schools — Course of 
 Study. — "Exercises, mental and written, in addi- 
 tion, subtraction, multiplication and division of 
 abstract and concrete numbers to eighty-one. No- 
 tation and numeration of hundreds, tens and units, 
 illustrated objectively. Roman numerals to L." 
 
 Method. — Let the children acquire a clear con- 
 ception of number by presenting objects and having 
 the children select the same number of similar 
 objects, then the same number of various other 
 kinds of objects. The objects then are to be 
 numbered one, two, three, etc. Next is to be pre- 
 sented the representative of number, or the use of 
 the arithmetical character. 
 
36 .T^orlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 The pupil is to make tables of addition, subtrac- 
 tion, multiplication, and division, with the use of 
 objects; afterward abstractly as far as fifty. The 
 notation and numeration of hundreds, tens and 
 units was illustrated with the use of objects. In 
 all this, habits of clear expression, of correct state- 
 ment of concrete problems, and of making good 
 figures, were insisted upon. 
 
 THIRD CLASS. 
 
 Second- Grade Primary Schools — Course of 
 Study. — "Addition and multiplication continued. 
 Subtraction illustrated objectively. Exercises in 
 subtraction, minuend not to exceed thousands. No- 
 tation of simple proper fractions. Exercises in 
 single-step reductions (descending) on such parts of 
 tables as may be derived from object lessons." 
 
 First Orade Primary Schools — Course of 
 Study. — "Exercises in addition, subtraction, multi- 
 plication and short division. Reductions to cor- 
 respond to object lessons. Simple calculations of 
 surfaces of rectangles, base and perpendicular height 
 being given, and of the contents of parallelopiped- 
 ons, dimensions not to exceed ten. Applications to, 
 reductions of fractions, and single-step reductions 
 of compound numbers to correspond with object 
 lessons. All concrete examples to be analyzed." 
 
 Method. — Review of the work of the first two 
 grades. The elementary rules of written arithmetic. 
 The pupils must now thoroughly learn the law of 
 
Teachers' :^ssociaiion. 37 
 
 increase and decrease by ten. For this purpose 
 they should be taught to read numbers as unitsj 
 tens, or hundreds, etc. Thus 11111 might be read 
 as "eleven.thousand one hundred and eleven" units; 
 as "one thousand one hundred and eleven tens and 
 one over;" that is, "one-tenth often over;" as "one 
 hundred and eleven hundreds and eleven over," or 
 "one ten and one unit over;" then by reduction it 
 may be shown that the "one ten" is "one-tenth" of 
 the one hundred, and the one unit one- hundredth 
 of the hundred ; and, lastly, by reduction and addi- 
 tion^ that the eleven units make eleven hundredths 
 of one hundred, etc. Show multiplication as a sub- 
 stitute for several additions of the same number. 
 The analysis of subtraction by reductions of the 
 minuend to be illustrated by representing the hun- 
 dreds, tens and units employed by the denomination 
 of our money — dollar, dime and cent. Insist upon 
 the analysis of every step in multiplication and 
 division. Reduction of denominate numbers was 
 presented as far as required by the Course of Study ; 
 reduction of mixed numbers to improper fractions 
 and of improper fractions to whole or mixed num- 
 bers was presented by analysis ; also the computa- 
 tion of areas of rectangular surfaces and the solidity 
 of parallelopipedons. 
 
 SECOiSTD CLASS. 
 
 Fourth Grade Orammar Schools — Course of 
 Studp.—" Long division. Principles of numbers. 
 Federal money. Identity of this system of notation 
 
38 ^forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 with the decimal system. Reduction, addition and 
 subtraction of compound numbers. Cancellation, 
 cloth and beer measure to be omitted." 
 
 Third Grade Orammar Schools — .Course of 
 Study. — "Multiplication and division of compound 
 numbers. The subject of factoring. G. C. D. and 
 L. C. M. Development of fractions, terms, simple, 
 proper and improper fractions; principles of frac- 
 tions ; reduction to lowest terms ; compound to sim- 
 ple; common denominator, addition, subtraction, 
 multiplication, division and review of fractions of 
 simple numbers." 
 
 Method. — In long division, the work of analysis 
 commenced in the previous grade is to be continued, 
 and the pupil led to name the denomination of each 
 quotient figure before he determines the figure. 
 The identity of the notation of Federal money with 
 the system of decimal notation to be carefully illus- 
 trated. In reduction where great vagueness usually 
 prevails, extreme care must be taken to show that 
 the multiplicand is not the number of the denomin- 
 ation to be reduced; thus, in changing 7 bushels to 
 lower denominations, 7 bu. is not the multiplicand — 
 else the product would be bushels, and there would 
 be no reduction; but the multiplicand is 4 pks., and 
 these 4 pks. are multiplied by seven — the number 
 of the denomination to be reduced. The product 
 is 28 pks. — ^the same denomination as the mul- 
 tiplicand, and in a denomination lower than first 
 stated ; and so on, throughout the entire reduction. 
 Thus, in reducing 3 bu. 2 pks. 2 qts. to pints, the 
 
Teachers' Association. 39 
 
 successive multiplicands are 4 pks., 8 qts., 2pts. — 
 and not 8 bu., 14 pks., 114 qts. The process is as 
 follows : 
 
 3 bu. 2 pks. % qts. to pints. 
 (1.) 1 bu.=4 pks. 
 
 3 bu.=4 pks. X 3=13 pks. 
 
 12 pks. + 2 pks.=l4 pks. 
 (2.) 1 pk. =8 qts. 
 
 14 pks.=8 qts. X 14=112 qts. 
 
 112 qts +2 qts.=114qts. 
 (3.) 1 qt. =2 pts. 
 
 114 qts.=2 pts. X 114=228 pts. 
 
 3 bu. 2 pks. 2 qts. =228 pts. 
 
 "Multiply the highest denomination given by 
 that number of the next lower which makes a unit 
 of the higher," etc., is not a correct rule for reduc- 
 tion descending, as no reduction can take place by 
 following it. 
 
 It must be carefully pointed out, in finding the 
 area of surfaces, that the area is not the product of 
 linear units by linear units, but the product of a 
 square unit taken a certain number of times ; thus, 
 the area of a surface 4 ft. long and 8 ft. wide=12 
 sq. ft., not found, however, by multiplying the 4 ft. 
 of length by the 3 ft. of width, but as follows: 
 
 1 ft. long, 1 ft. wide=l sq. ft. 
 
 4 ft. long, 1 ft. wide = 1 sq. ft. x 4 = 4 sq. ft. 
 
 4 ft. long, 3 ft. wide = 4 sq. f t. x 3 = 12 sq. ft. 
 
 and so in finding the solidity of a regular solid. 
 
40 . Ji'orlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 In the presentation of the whole subject, it is 
 most earnestly recommended that addition and 
 multiplication be taught first, and not reduction, 
 so called. The object is to enable the pupil to get 
 familiar with the single-step reductions before 
 writing them continuously for the reduction of a 
 quantity from the highest to the lowest at one time. 
 
 Cr.C. T). and L. C. M. are mainly treated by the 
 factoring method. In fractions the finding of the L. 
 C. D., and the unchanged value of the fraction, 
 should be presented in the same analytical way that 
 the preceding work was done. The same in the 
 reduction of a compound fraction to a simple one, 
 as being a problem to find what part of the whole 
 a part of a part of it is. Multiplication of a fraction 
 by a fraction was presented as a compound fraction; 
 that of a whole number by a fraction as a division 
 instead of a multiplication, and the only real case of 
 multiplication of fractions to be when the fraction is 
 multiplied, that is where the multiplier is an 
 integer. 
 
 FIRST CLASS. 
 
 Second Grade Orammar Schools— Course of 
 Study. — "Decimals, simple and compound; their 
 relations to common fractions to be kept in view. 
 Ratio and proportion and aliquots ; percentage to 
 interest, with review of arithmetic as far as studied." 
 
 First Grade Grammar Schools — Course of 
 Study. — "The whole subject completed and re- 
 viewed, omitting permutation and alligation alter- 
 nate." 
 
Teachers' Association. 41 
 
 Jfe^AocZ.— Time proved too limited for the amount 
 of work to be done in these grades. The teacher 
 could present only division of common and decimal 
 fractions, the identity of process in the redaction of 
 integral denominate numbers and that of common 
 and decimal fractional numbers of the same denom- 
 ination, the subject of percentage, as used in 
 commission, insurance, etc., ratio, and single and 
 compound proportions. To state how each of these 
 subjects was treated would require more space 
 than properly belongs to this report. 
 
 OBJECTS. 
 
 In Classes IV and III, the following topics were 
 discussed : 
 
 1. The ' general objects aimed at in all school 
 work. 
 
 2. The general principles of pedagogy which, 
 should underlie and control the methods employed 
 in accomplishing those objects. 
 
 3. The place and value of object lessons as one 
 of the instrumentalities used. 
 
 4. The kind of exercises to be given, and the 
 proper subjects for lessons, in a course of object 
 lessons adapted to the various grades of the Primary 
 School. 
 
 5. The manner of conducting lessons upon the 
 subjects selected, in each grade, so as to secure the 
 precise mental exercises adapted to that grade. 
 
 The method pursued in these discussions, and 
 also in those upon the subjects of Geography and 
 
43 T^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 United States History, was the following : A series 
 of questions was proposed by the instructor, and 
 answered by the class; the series being so arranged 
 that the answer elicited to each question should 
 become the basis of the next one proposed. Thus 
 the class were engaged in independent thought upon 
 each point, and thus, each principle laid down 
 could not fail to receive the approval and support 
 of all, since it was the product of their own mental 
 action, brought to bear by the instructor' s question, 
 upon the point under consideration. 
 
 In the work in "object lessons" with the teachers 
 of Classes I and II, an effort was made to discuss 
 plans of lessons for considering various subjects and 
 various points in regard to different subjects. As 
 the subject of "object lessons" had not previously 
 been fully wrought out in the lower grades, the 
 pupils under the charge of the teachers of the Gram- 
 mar Schools were not able to begin with advanced 
 work; hence, first, some of the more simple work 
 was considered, as a few lessons of that character 
 would have to be given in each grade. 
 
 For this work,, lessons in which children are 
 called upon to discover and state the qua,lities and 
 uses of objects, how the qualities are discovered, the 
 dependence of qualities upon each other, and also of 
 uses upon qualities, and lessons requiring compari- 
 son of objects were presented, and the plans for 
 giving such lessons discussed. Subjects appropriate 
 for lessons of these kinds were also selected. 
 
 Lessons upon the manufacture of objects were 
 
Teachers' ^Issocialion. 43 
 
 considered in general, and lessons upon the manu- 
 facture of leather and of paper were discussed in 
 detail, both as regards the matter and the method. 
 An eflEbrt was also made to show how lessons of this 
 character could be used in all the grades, touching 
 upon only the more simple processes and changes 
 in the "■Fourth Orade,'''' entering more and more 
 - into details as the higher grades are reached, 
 especially requiring more reasoning out of results, 
 as well as more detailed work in regard to the 
 machinery used. Subjects for lessons of this char- 
 acter were also selected. 
 
 As "object lessons" are expected to include, not 
 only lessons on the more common objects Jcnown as 
 such, but also lessons on plants and animals, atten- 
 tion was also given to them. Two or three lessons 
 upon as many different animals, were presented and 
 considered with regard to description of parts, dis- 
 position, habits, including mode of life, food, and 
 peculiar actions or traits and adaptation of structure 
 to habits. Plans for giving such lessons were dis- 
 cussed, both with reference to domestic and foreign 
 animals. After this work was completed, a few 
 lessons in which the pupils are led to classify 
 animals according to characteristic features were 
 presented, and also the method for giving such 
 lessons. 
 
 With reference to lessons upon plants, it was 
 merely stated that the work in them is similar to 
 that in lessons upon animals, both with regard to 
 lessons upon the individual plants, and also those 
 
U l^oHh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 including classification. (More could not be done 
 on account of limited time.) 
 
 In addition to considering all these lessons simply 
 as "object lessons," some time was spent in present- 
 ing different plans that might be adopted, so that 
 the matter wrought out in each lesson could serve 
 as a basis for ^composition exercise. 
 
 LANGUAGE, 
 
 rOURTH CLASS. 
 
 Fourth Orade Primary — Course of Study. — 
 "Attention to be paid to pronunciation, and the cor- 
 rection of common errors in the use of la,nguage." 
 
 Method.— ll\iG: work of this grade can, for the 
 greater part, be only incidental, introduced in con- 
 nection with class exercises in all subjects, at the 
 hours of recitation. The teacher should take advant- 
 age of any opportunity that offers to lead the 
 children to notice, and if possible, to correct errors 
 in pronunciation, use of words, or style of expres- 
 sion ; also, to increase the children's vocabulary, by 
 giving new words after the children have gained the 
 ideas these new words express. (This incidental 
 work should be continued through all the grades.) 
 
 Third Orade Primary — Course of Study. — 
 "Putting words into sentences, discovering new 
 words, with use of pictures, etc." 
 
 Lead children to form sentences from words with 
 the use of which the pupils are familiar, as names of 
 
Teachers' :issocialion. 45 
 
 things, words expressing qualities easily discovered, 
 and those expressing actions of domestic animals.- 
 No effort was made to discuss how to teach the 
 children the names of such words, but simply the 
 combining of them to form sentences. The object, 
 quality, or action should be presented, and by 
 questioning, the children should be led to form 
 statements in regard to it. Attention to be paid to 
 the use of capitals and the period ; the method of 
 teaching the use of these was here introduced. 
 Lessons in which the pupils are called upon to 
 describe pictures, thereby learning new words, and 
 to state their description in sentences, were alsa 
 discussed. 
 
 THIRD CLASS. 
 
 Second Grade Primary — Course of Study.— 
 "Same as in Third Grade, with modifications to 
 denote time, place, degree, etc." 
 
 Method. — Many exercises similar to those used 
 in the Third Grade. Lessons requiring combina- 
 tions of short elements, thus forming longer sen- 
 tences, and the use of the comma and "and" in 
 sentences like ''That flower is fresh, fragrant and 
 'beautiful.'" Lessons requiring discrimination in 
 the use of words, especially of those expressing 
 qualities. Lessons leading pupils to form sen- 
 tences with words, expressing time, place, degree 
 and manner. Lessons in which statements must 
 be enlarged by the children's adding words or 
 phrases. 
 
46 T^orin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 First Grade Primary — Course of Study. — 
 "Name-words, action-words connected with the 
 idea of past, present and future ; the simple state- 
 ment, with have^ be, and other verbs ; quality- words ; 
 the name- word modified ; quality-word modified ; 
 number-word ; limiting- word ; action-word modi- 
 fied to denote where, when, how and what.'''' 
 
 Method. — Tlie work of this grade consisted 
 mainly of discussions regarding the teaching of 
 the definitions of name-words, action-words, etc., 
 and of their use in forming statements. The limits 
 of this report exclude the lengthy details of these 
 discussions. 
 
 SECOND CLASS. 
 
 Fourth Crrade Grammar — Course of Study. — 
 "Nouns — number, gender and classes of; verbs — 
 number of ; adjectives ; adverbs. The element, a 
 word ; the eldment compound ; conjunction — co- 
 ordinate. The element, a group of words ; phrase ; 
 proposition. Arrangement of words in the state- 
 ment. Pronoun — person of ; case — nominative and 
 objective ; of pronouns, witli verb, with preposition, 
 nominative and objective ; cases of nouns with verb 
 and preposition. Copula with eleven forms of verb 
 to be. Verbs — transitive and intransitive ; number 
 and person of verb." 
 
 Third Grade Primary — Course of Study. — 
 "The word elements, principal and subordinate, 
 subject, predicate; members of compound sentence; 
 adjective element — a word ; classification and com- 
 parison of adjectives ; possessive case of nouns and 
 
Teachers' Association. 47 
 
 pronouns. Adverbial element — a word ; classifica- 
 tion and comparison of. The element, a phrase ; 
 the phrase, adjective and adverbial. The element, 
 a modifying clause. Subordinate conjunctions ; com- 
 plex sentences." 
 
 Method. — (a.) Teach one thing at a time, and 
 that thoroughly. 
 
 (&.) Illustrate everything the pupil is required 
 to learn in any given lesson, when assigning that 
 lesson. 
 
 (c.) Teach the parts of speech in connection with 
 the analysis of sentences. 
 
 {d.) Teach thoroughly how to identify all the 
 parts of speech before calling attention to any of 
 their properties or modifications. 
 
 {e.) Teach the classes into which the noun, verb, 
 etc., are divided, as nouns into common and proper 
 nouns, while teaching the parts of speech. 
 
 (/".) Teach the properties or modifications of the 
 parts of speech, one by one, and apply in parsing 
 only those properties to which gthe attention of the 
 pupil has been called. 
 
 {g.) Fix firmly in the mind of the pupil the fact 
 that the use, and not the/brm of a word determines 
 its classification. 
 
 FIRST CLASS." 
 
 Second Grade Orammar — Course of Study. — 
 "Relative pronoun ; conjunctive adverbs ; verb — 
 tense and mode ; interrogative words. Review of 
 subject as far as studied. 
 
48 J^orVh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 First Grade Grammar — Course of Study. — 
 "Abridged forms, apposition, phrases for clauses, 
 participles, case absolute, interjections; complete 
 analysis of sentences ; punctuation. Review." 
 
 Method. — {a.) In the analysis of sentences require 
 the following order to be observed. 
 
 1. Define the example as a sentence. 
 
 2. Name Its kinil. 
 
 3. Point out the subject. 
 
 i. Point out the predicate and copula. 
 
 5. Point out the modifiers of the subject and their modiflers. 
 
 6. Point out the modifiers of the predicate and their modifiers, naming 
 first the objective, secondly the adverbial modifiers. 
 
 7. Always point out the modified term first, and then state that it is 
 modified by " " etc. 
 
 (6.) In the analysis of compound sentences point 
 out the members in the order of their position, and 
 then analyze each member as a simple or complex 
 sentence. 
 
 (c.) In the analysis of complex sentences, point 
 out first the principal and subordinate clauses, 
 determine the use of the subordinate clauses as 
 modifiers in the analysis of the principal clause, and 
 then analyze the subordinate clauses. 
 
 {d.) In class instruction, whenever there may be 
 difference of opinion as to the application of a mod- 
 ifying word, phrase or clause, agree upon some 
 meaning which the sentence may express, and then 
 analyze. This being done, show the different mean- 
 ings which may be given to it by a different appli- 
 cation of the modifier or modifiers. 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 49 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 SECOND AND THIRD CLASSES. 
 
 Primary and Orammar Grades.— "In Geogra- 
 phy the attention of the teachers was directed to the 
 most effective methods of treating those portions of 
 the subject belonging to their grades. The object 
 aimed at was to show how to create, on the part of 
 the pupil, mental activity and interest in the study 
 of this subject, and to impress permanently upon 
 his memory the subject matter assigned for his 
 study. 
 
 "The teachers of First Grade Primary consid- 
 ered, Jirst, the method of conducting those exercises 
 which prepare the young pupil for the intelligent 
 study of a text-book suited to the higher of those 
 grades; second, they considered methods of con- 
 ducting, in a primary class, the different kinds of 
 exercises connected with the use of a text-book by 
 the class. The object aimed at in the exercises 
 suggested was to show the pupil how to study a 
 text- book, and to secure to him a thorough and 
 intelligent knowledge of the subject matter pre- 
 sented by his author." 
 
 SIKGING. 
 
 FOTJRTH CLASS. 
 
 D Primary— Method. — At first the pupils imitate 
 the teacher. They sing several sounds, as one, two 
 and three of the major scale, or a few words to 
 
50 T^orWi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 diflferent sounds. Continue this until they can sing 
 any one sound they may hear, which is within the 
 compass of their voices. All through the year little 
 songs, good and pure, should be taught by rote. 
 As soon as the entire school can sing in imitation of 
 the teacher, let each pupil sing alone before the 
 class. Make it a rule that whatever is done by the 
 entire school should also be done by each pupil 
 alone. Comparison of sounds; pupils must learn 
 to distinguish between high and low, long and short, 
 soft and loud sounds. Build up the scale ; introduce 
 measure. During the year the first five sounds of 
 the scale should be learned. Learning the scale 
 means that each pupil can sing the sounds by sylla- 
 ble, and can, on hearing a sound, tell immediately 
 from which member of the scale it sprang. Staff, 
 three lines. They should be able to read, by name 
 or syllable, readily; one being represented by either 
 line or space. Measures, parts and part of a meas- 
 ure ; long and short sounds ; each pupil must sing 
 these, when called upon, alone. Long and short 
 notes and rests, and their uses. Beating time ; keep- 
 ing any rate the teacher may give ; explanation of 
 bars, etc. 
 
 Teachers should learn to comprehend the ase of 
 music, and enter into the work heartily, and con- 
 sider it as something that is essential. 
 
 C Primary. — Review previous grade. Be cer- 
 tain that the pupil understands measure, parts and 
 part of a measure ; beating time ; difference between 
 a beat and a part of a measure ; short and long 
 
Teachers' sissociaimi. 51 
 
 sounds ; accent ; a tempo ; scale ; principles of read- 
 ing ; uses of notes ; rests and repeat-marks. 
 
 New work : six of the scale ; three-part measure, 
 longer sound, note and rest. Singing, imitating the 
 teacher. Bear in mind that in every grade each 
 pupil must be able to do the work of the grade. 
 
 THIRD CLASS. 
 
 B Primary. — Review of previous grade. Com- 
 plete the scale. Four-part measure. Longest sound, 
 note and rest ; practice the singing of two sounds at 
 a time, preparatory to two-part songs. Imitation 
 exercises. 
 
 A Priviary. — Names (^ow&Ze, triple., and quadru- 
 ple. Similar scale above and below, telling from 
 usual signatures where one is represented. Writing 
 notes as teacher sings, and dictation exercises. 
 
 SECOWD CLASS. 
 
 D Orammar. — Sharp four and flat foiir. Classi- 
 fication into properties and departments. Sextuple 
 measure ; terms piano, mezzo ; and commence voice- 
 cultivation theoretically. 
 
 C Orammar. — Sharp six and flat seven ; shorter 
 sound, note and rest. Names of notes, whole, half, 
 etc. Classification of measures into primitive, deriv- 
 ative and compound forms. 
 
 FIEST CLASS. 
 
 B Orammar. — Dotted eighth note and rest. Com- 
 mencing times with last half of a part of a measure. 
 
53 J\forih-Eastern Ohio 
 
 Names, major and minor scales, and general intervals, 
 as seconds, thirds, etc. 
 
 A Orammar. — Shortest sound ; sixteenth note 
 and rest. Intervals of major and minor scales ; 
 finish chromatic scale; three-part exercises and 
 practice. 
 
 EEADING, 
 
 FOURTH CLASS. 
 
 D Orade Primary. — Position. The slanting 
 straight line and spacing. The letters i, u, w, n, 
 m, X, V, o, a, e, c, r, s, single and in combination. 
 In the third term continue position and pen-holding ; 
 add letters t, d, p, q, h, k, 1, b, j, y, g, z, f, single and 
 combined. Revievp the former letters. 
 
 C Orade Primary — Practice word and sentence 
 writing. Begin capital letters; copy slip- writing 
 with lead pencil. 
 
 OTHER CLASSES. 
 
 The use of the books of any series progressively 
 illustrated and explained. 
 
 In the latter portion of Class Fourth, and all 
 through Class Third, give special attention to posi- 
 tion, pen-7iolding, slant, spacing, shape, forms and 
 analysis, both of single letters and words ; in Classes 
 Second and First, to movement or execution, and 
 arrangement. The four steps in teaching writing 
 are : to know, to execute, criticise and correct. In 
 classes where sentence-books are used, explain first 
 
Teachers' Association. 53 
 
 the copy carefully, then require the pupils to criti- 
 cise their work on the following points : Length of 
 line and space between words; then write a few 
 lines and correct those faults. Next criticise space 
 between letters ; slant and distribution of shade. 
 Take no more than two of these points in a lesson. 
 
 EEADING. 
 
 FOURTH CLASS. 
 
 Method's. — Alphabetic, word, phonic, phonetic. 
 
 The alphabetic commonly rejected in the best 
 schools. The child learns to read by it because — 
 First. In using it he is brought constantly to the 
 inspection of words which are thus learned by form 
 as in the word method ; Second. By constant use the 
 powers of the letters are gradually perceived. The 
 name of the letter useless ; illustrations. The word 
 method extensively adopted ; objection to it ; the key 
 to new words not mastered. The phonic method, in 
 which the sounds of the letters are used instead of 
 their names ; objection to this method in our lan- 
 guage; various sounds to same letter. ^\\.% phonetic 
 method (Leigh' s), in which the letters are so varied 
 in form that each character indicates its own power 
 or influence in the pronunciation of the word. The 
 last the best. Why? Would require a change of 
 books, which is sometimes impossible. In such 
 cases the word method and phonic recommended 
 in combination. 
 
54 'NorlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Phonic and Word Method, how used. — Printed 
 or written words, from one to twenty, to be first 
 introduced and learned. For the commencement, 
 one is best. Pnpils to be led to detect the sounds of 
 the same by slow and distinct pronunciation. Atten- 
 tion directed to the letters as indicating the sounds. 
 These to be used as keys to the pronunciation of 
 new words. Children to be, familiarized by much 
 practice with words thus made out (word method). 
 Yarious exercises to facilitate this. The construc- 
 tion of sentences involving the words to be learned. 
 Daily exercise should be had in making out new 
 words, that the pupil may acquire facility in the 
 process. Never pronounce for a child a word 
 which he can he led to pronounce for himself. 
 
 Advantages. — The child discovers as much as 
 possible for himself. Frequent analysis of words 
 leads to frequent and careful exercises in articula- 
 tion, which are peculiarly necessary in our country, 
 populated as it is by people coming from every 
 quarter of the globe. 
 
 The use of a sentence instead of a single word 
 suggested where teachers have been practiced in the 
 phonic method. Pupils may be led to speak some 
 simple sentence containing words easily analyzed. 
 The one best adapted to use may then be selected 
 and printed on the blackboard. This may then be 
 read by the teacher, and the pupils practiced upon 
 it, till they learn one word from another. By slow 
 and distinct pronunciation, they may be led to ana- 
 lyze the words of the sentence, one. after another ; 
 
Teachers' :fLssoeialion. 55 
 
 tlien have their attention directed to the characters 
 which indicate the sounds. This method requires 
 more experience and skill than the other. It was 
 also suggested that the script character might be 
 used to the entire exclusion of the printed, for the 
 first term or two. Some advantages pointed out. 
 
 The use of the blackboard commended as more 
 livelj'' than the use of cards. Cards necessary as a 
 stepping-stone to books. 
 
 During the progress of this series of lessons, les- 
 sons were given to teachers on the sounds of letters, 
 phonic analysis, enunciation, articulation, etc. Les- 
 sons as practical illustrations were given to children 
 in the presence of teachers. Criticisms followed 
 some of the lessons. 
 
 Use of the Book. — All the words used upon the 
 first four or five pages of the Primer, or First 
 Reader, should be thoroughly learned before the 
 book is put into the hands of the children. Just 
 before they open the book they should review all 
 the words used in the first lesson. Then, opening 
 the book, they should be encouraged to find out 
 and tell what the first line says, and perhaps some 
 be called upon to come and read it in a low voice 
 to the teacher, so as to be unheard by the other 
 pupils. Finally, they should be called upon, one 
 by one, to read aloud. This is an interesting exer- 
 cise, provided care be taken not to use the sentences 
 of the reader in the previous blackboard exercises. 
 
 Cautions. — No sentence upon the blackboard or 
 in thie book should be permitted to be read with 
 
56 'NorVh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 careless pronunciation, or monotonously. Concert 
 reading to be resorted to, but its faults to be care- 
 fully guarded against. 
 
 THIRD CLASS. 
 
 The lessons in this class were devoted to methods 
 for training children in distinct articulation. Four 
 only were given. Stow's Training system was 
 explained, its usefulness demonstrated and its faults 
 pointed out. 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL BRANCHES. 
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 Recommended that, after learning the general 
 structure and parts of plants, illustrating every 
 point with living specimens, the remainder of the 
 technical terms used in botanical descriptions should 
 be left to be learned by use in the actual study of 
 plants. The class should then be carefully trained 
 in the thorough and systematic study of the charac- 
 ters of plants, with the purpose of referring them 
 to their proper place in the botanic system. The 
 character of each plant should be completely 
 worked out before any use should be made of the 
 analytic key, and when by its aid the order has 
 been found, its character should be written out on 
 the blackboard and so completely mastered, by the 
 aid of the first specimen examined, that any suc- 
 ceeding specimens belonging to the same order may 
 
TeacTiers' dissociation. 57 
 
 be readily referred to it without the use of the key. 
 A similar course should be pursued for genera, and 
 if time permits, for species also. The object should 
 be, not to learn the scientiiic names of a few plants, 
 more or less, but a proper method of natural history 
 study. The lessons were illustrated by careful 
 analyses of several plants by the class, pursuing the 
 method proposed. 
 
 1/ 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 After familiarizing the class with the ten or twelve 
 simple minerals which are the chief constituents of 
 rocks, and the ordinal classification of the animals 
 chiefly found fossil in the rocks, (a diagram of which 
 was presented, with a column showing in what for- 
 mations, they first occur,) the study of the stratified 
 rocks should be entered on, the class being required 
 to produce from memory, on the blackboard, outline 
 geological maps, and sections of the periods and 
 formations, making use of those signs to indicate 
 the kinds of rocks which are used by geologists. 
 Care should be taken to make familiar the geological 
 deposits of Ohio, and the order in which they occur, 
 so far as is at present known. A few characteristic 
 fossils of each period should be so carefully studied, 
 with specimens, where possible, or with good figures, 
 that the pupil may draw them from memory, in the 
 class. The drawings of the pupil may not be very 
 excellent as drawings, but they will secure a sharp 
 
58 J\forth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 and definite impression of the characters of the 
 remembered species, instead of those vague, form- 
 less notions which are usually not more useless than 
 tantalizing. Special pains should be taken to accus- 
 tom the class to the geological modes of reasoning 
 on the facts presented, and of interpreting the 
 various geological phenomena, by reference to the 
 present operation of existing causes. Such a study 
 of a book like Dana's Text-book should be accom- 
 plished in about two school terms of fourteen weeks 
 each. 
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 The two lessons given were mainly confined to 
 showing how a limited apparatus may be used with 
 a few common materials in the continuous experi- 
 ments which are needful for the most profitable 
 pursuit of this study. It was recommended to 
 make these experiments take largely the form of 
 qualitative analysis, as developing most clearly a 
 great number of characteristic properties, and look- 
 ing most definitely to subsequent practical use, 
 while familiarizing the pupils with many reactions, 
 which should, in all cases, be written out. Atten- 
 tion was also given to chemical problems, which 
 were recommended to be much used, since they 
 would familiarize the pupil with chemical equiva- 
 lents and prepare him for the easy use of his 
 knowlege in industrial pursuits. 
 
 The lessons in Astronomy were limited to the 
 explanation of some points which are difficult to 
 make clear to a class. 
 
TeacTiers' sissocialion. 59 
 
 / 
 
 TEIGONOMETRY. 
 
 It was recommended that for ordinary High 
 School instruction the study of trigonometry should 
 be limited to plane trigonometry, all but the abso- 
 lutely necessary analytical work being omitted ; 
 instruction in the fundamental principles to be 
 wholly oral, the class being simply supplied with 
 trigonometrical tables ; every principle, as soon as 
 learned, to be fixed by solving numerous original or 
 selected examples, and if instruments can be had, 
 the class should, by field work, be taught the appli- 
 cations of trigonometry by as extended and varied 
 series of measurements as are possible. 
 
 / 
 
 LATIN. 
 
 Recommended to be commenced with some intro- 
 ductory book, but that no matter should be learned 
 Until it is needed for immediate use, and can be fixed 
 by such use; that, to this end, in connection with 
 the first lessons on nouns, the present tenses of a 
 few verbs, like sutn^ do and Jiaheo, should be given 
 orally, and the pupils practiced in using all their 
 acquisitions as soon as made, in the construction of 
 sentences ; and that the ordinary use of all the cases 
 of nouns and pronouns should thus be successively 
 taught orally while the pupils are learning the tables 
 of inflections, the syntactical rules, in all cases, being 
 
60 J\rorth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 given in the language of the grammar which they 
 will eventually use. 
 
 Taught in this way, with large use of blackboard 
 in the reproduction of tables of inflection, and in 
 writing out and analyzing sentences, a class of thirty 
 could easily master the introductory book through 
 the first conjugation of verbs, in the long autumn 
 term of our schools, and in the residue of the year 
 could finish the remaining conjugations and irregu- 
 lar verbs, and so much of the reader as is requisite 
 to master the rules of syntax, with the exception, 
 perhaps, of some of the more special rules for the 
 use of the subjunctive. No rule should be memo- 
 rized until the relation on which it is founded is 
 made manifest. Every sentence should be carefully 
 analyzed on the blackboard by the class. The struc- 
 ture of the Latin sentence, (with the exception of the 
 or alio ohliqua,) and the order of arrangement of 
 words will then be made somewhat familiar, and 
 the class will then have acquired some dexterity in 
 unraveling Latin sentences. With the second year 
 Csesar may be commenced, special attention being 
 now paid to the use of the oratio ohliqua, and to the 
 completion of the subjunctive mood. The thorough 
 analysis of sentences should be continued, with the 
 use of the blackboard, in writing out inflections of 
 nouns, adjectives and pronouns, synopsis of verbs, 
 and translations of passages in reviews. It was 
 recommended, each day to re-read for the class the 
 lesson of the day, aiming, while making a faithful 
 translation, to put it into the most elegant English 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 61 
 
 dress possible. Forty chapters of the First Book of 
 Caesar's Commentaries would be a full first term's 
 work, and during the remainder of the year, from 
 four to six books could be finished. Cicero and 
 Sallust should follow Csesar, a similar course in 
 principle being pursued, though probably less full 
 in detail ; and the study of Virgil should be left for 
 the fourth year, when the difficulties of the language 
 being mainly mastered, the peculiarities of poetic 
 diction would present fewer difficulties. 
 
 It was also recommended, that from the beginning 
 of the second year, weekly lessons should be given 
 all the classes combined, in Roman history and 
 antiquities. 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 A system of composition was presented, intended 
 for Class I and all the grades of the High School. 
 It comprises compositions on inanimate and animate 
 objects, events, narrations, themes historical and 
 rational. 
 
 Method. — (a.) The teacher must never assign 
 objects or themes to his pupils, and require their 
 compositions on the same, without the pupil's first 
 acquiring a certain amount of knowledge on the 
 subject he has to write on. The pupils should first 
 recite on their subjects in the class. They should 
 be required to post themselves by consulting books 
 of reference at home, in the libraries of their friends, 
 
63 Ji'orlh-Easlern Oliio 
 
 or in the public libraries ; and they should take such 
 notes during the perusal as will enable them to recite, 
 either with the notes before them or entirely from 
 memory, as the teacher may wish, the outlines of 
 their composition. The teacher is supposed to have 
 general information enough to enable him to correct 
 the pupil or supply additional data. Besides this 
 solid preparation, this feature of the system has- the 
 unquestionable advantages, first, of introducing the 
 pupil to good books, and of inducing him frequently 
 to read more than at first intended ; secondly, of 
 creating a demand for good books in many of the 
 towns which at present enjoy but a limited supply, 
 and may by this means see the necessity of increasing 
 their stock of books. 
 
 (&.) The pupils must receive additional help. 
 The recitations must be preceded by a skillful divi- 
 sion of the theme into general topics leading from 
 the "known" to the "unknown," and being illus- 
 trated by the teacher. In all grades, reading of 
 descriptions, essays, etc., of standard authors. 
 
 Thus the pupil learns to cast his knowledge of 
 his theme into proper forms ; he learns connection 
 of isolated facts, classification of ideas, and the sepa- 
 ration of things important from things unimportant. 
 
 Unless the time given to each lesson be too short, 
 and the class too large, no more than three pupils 
 should be assigned the same subject at a time. 
 This is to avoid sameness of style and monotony 
 during the recitation and reading of the composi- 
 tions. 
 
Teachers' Association. - 
 
 63 
 
 An example may illustrate the method. It is a 
 copy of a pupil's notes on his subject — '■'■Moun- 
 tains.'''' He is none of the brightest, and had, at 
 the time, just entered the lower grade of our High 
 School. 
 
 "MOUNTAINS." 
 
 Itoptcs given, by Teacher. 
 
 Notes by the PwpU, on which he recited before 
 writing his Oomposttion 
 
 1. Qualities, or Impresslous Great variety of mountains ; variety of colors : 
 
 received. habitation of birdis and quadrupeds; roar 
 
 of winds and waters ; tower up to clouds. 
 
 2. Extent; size; duration; All over the world, even below the sea; vari- 
 
 kinds and parts. ous size— Andes, Himalaya, Alps, Eocky 
 
 Mountains, hills, mounds, heights, eleva- 
 tions, hillocks, ridge, peak, mountain- 
 chain. 
 
 3. Belation to surround- 
 ings. 
 
 Upland, highland, cliffs, bluffs, capes, promon- 
 tories; difference between southern and 
 northern slopes of Alps; between eastern 
 and western of flocky Mountains; moun- 
 tains near cities ; means of crossing. 
 
 i. Similarity 'or! dissimi- Solid portions of earth, similar to the skeleton 
 larity. in man ; sleeping giants ; Atlas. 
 
 5. Origin or cause ; effects; Unknown— source of brooks and rivers; they 
 
 influence ; pleasure ; 
 beauty ; usef nines s ; 
 value ; purpose ; ap- 
 plication, etc. 
 
 separate nations ; are means of defense ; 
 influence climate ; pleasures of the chase ; 
 tourists; beautiful scenery ; sunrise; min- 
 erals, ores, wood, game, pastures, quarries, 
 salt lakes. Invaluable ; deified by heathen 
 nations. 
 
 This order of topics is for the highest Grammar 
 and lowest High School grades. The diiference in 
 the compositions of these grades should lie in quan- 
 tity rather than in quality. In the higher grades of 
 the High School they are still valuable ; but the 
 
64 J^orlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 disposition of the topics is different, the scope is 
 wider. Thus : 
 
 (OompositioTi far A or B Orade, High Schools.) 
 " MOUNTAINS." 
 
 1. Description of the pleasure and beauty in mountains ; upon what this is 
 
 based. How Walter Scott describes mountains. 
 
 2. Mountains as distinguished from elevated lands; examples; views of 
 
 Humboldt, of Bitter and others ; geological remarks. 
 
 3. State, explain and give reasons for, the various parts of mountains and 
 
 mountain chains, mountain passes ; historical events : Greece, Swit- 
 zerland, Tennessee, Virginia. 
 
 4. Characteristic features of several mountains ; causes. 
 
 8. Comparison. The'bones of the earth— why,;(chemistry) ; Atlas, (mythol- 
 ogy) ; the Sanscrit Indians and others; what caused ancient nations 
 to deify the mountains. 
 
 6. Their influence upon climate, hence upon man ; illustrate from history. 
 The Scots and Swiss. Draw parallel between mountainous nations and 
 others. Influence of mountains upon civilization, arts and litera- 
 tuje; what style of music they develop— why; what kind of literary 
 Productions — why. How do Homer, Shakspeare and Goethe speak 
 of mountains (rhetoric) ; symbols. 
 
 In a similar way, ' ' The Sword ' ' may be treated 
 in A and B Grammar and D High Schools, accord- 
 ing to the five topics above ; but in the higher grades 
 of the High Schools thus : 
 
 "THE SWOKD." 
 
 1. In the hand of the judge. 
 
 2. In the hand of the defender of the country. 
 
 3. In the hand of the tyrant. 
 
 4. In the hand of the murderer. 
 
 5. In the hand of the lunatic. 
 
 Model topics were also given in biographies ; 
 narrations, real and fictions ; abstract themes, his-, 
 torical and rational. Practical points regarding the 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 65 
 
 correction and execution of compositions were dis- 
 cussed. To state all that was given might easily 
 swell into a small volume. 
 
 UNIVEKSAL HISTOEY 
 
 Occupies but a term of sixteen weeks in the course 
 of study. In most cases the time is still farther 
 reduced, so that there may be said to be fifty-six 
 lessons in all. 
 
 Method. — Three methods were presented. First, 
 the retrogressive method, according to which the 
 teacher commences with the latest events of the day, 
 and proceeds in ascending order to the earliest his- 
 tory. Its advantage lies, first, in this, that the pupil 
 becomes acquainted with the present state of affairs 
 in the world, with the nations of his time and their 
 leaders, all of which may permit him a better insight 
 into the current events. Secondly, in this, that it is 
 more in harmony with the principle "from the 
 known to the unknown." Its disadvantage is 
 equally manifest. The occurences and transactions 
 of the modern era are complex products of very 
 intricate elements, most of which are beyond the 
 grasp of the pupil. It must remain a hopeless task 
 even for the most skillful teacher, unless, indee(^, 
 he be given about five times the present amount of 
 time. 
 
66 J\forl?i-Easlern Ohio 
 
 Abandoning this, the second method, that of 
 groups was illustrated. Commencing with the val- 
 ley of the Nile, a few notions regarding the earliest 
 Asiatic nations, together with a brief account of the 
 state of Egyptian civilization, clustered around a 
 few geographical details of this interesting valley. 
 The next group might consist of the "Basin of the 
 Mediterranean," it forming a centre around which 
 are crowded the events of nearly fifteen hundred 
 years. After a geographical sketch, the brazen 
 heroes of Grreece and Rome, the sturdy Teutons, 
 Huns and Goths, the fanatic Arabs and ambitious 
 Popes, the lofty Othos and the stern Crusaders 
 enter the arena. Next comes the "Basin of the 
 Atlantic," the French and English wars and the 
 discovery of America. Lastly, the "Inland Group" 
 may be spoken of, with Germany as the centre, 
 with the reformation, the thirty years' war, the 
 seven years' warfare, the revolt of the Nether- 
 lands, the dismemberment of Poland, and the 
 French revolution, the rise of Prussia and the 
 losses of Austria. 
 
 . To follow this method the teacher must master 
 his subject thoroughly, teach without a text-book, 
 know how to cement periods separated by centuries, 
 and lastly, combine fluency of speech with accuracy 
 of expression. This method has the advantage — 
 first, of giving, as it were, a bird' s-eye view of long 
 series of nations, events and heroes, in apparent 
 simultaneousness ; secoridly, of producing strong 
 impressions, owing to the increase of associations 
 produced, especially by means of geography as a 
 
TeacTiers' slssociaiion. 
 
 er 
 
 substratum. Its disadvantages— j'Xr*^, the difficulty 
 of obtaining correct views of the causes and their 
 results; secondly, the danger of separating or of 
 losing important links in the chain of historical 
 events ; and lastly, the undeniable scarcity of teach- 
 ers who can impart so much well in so short a time. 
 
 Until these difficulties can be overcome, the tTiird 
 method will be the more desirable, viz., the pro- 
 gressive method. 
 
 It commences with ancient history, for which 
 youth is more impressionable, and descends in pro- 
 gressive order to recent events. The lifty-six lessons 
 were divided as follows : 
 
 8 Lessons on Greece. 
 
 11 Lessons on Kome. 
 
 12 Lessons to the Kef- 
 ormation 
 
 1 Ancient Nations. 
 
 1 Geography— draw map of Greece. 
 
 1 Legends. 
 
 1 Persian Wars. 
 
 1 Review. 
 
 1 Athens— eraudeur and decay. 
 
 1 Alexander. 
 
 1 Eevlew. 
 
 3 Geography and Legends, down to subjugation 
 
 of Italy. 
 3 Punic Wars— draw map. 
 1 CsBsar. 
 
 1 Eevlew. 
 
 2 Golden Age— literature— draw map. 
 1 Decline. 
 
 I, 1 Review. 
 1 Migration of Nations. 
 1 Mahomet and followers, to 732— character of 
 
 Islam. 
 1 Review. 
 1 Charlemagne— draw map after 843. 
 
 3 Some of the German Emperors and Popes. 
 
 1 Review. 
 
 2 Crusades— cause and results. 
 
 1 State of Europe at discovery of America. 
 1 Review. 
 
68 
 
 ?{ori?i-Easlern Ohio 
 
 13 Lessons to French 
 Revolution 
 
 1 Bohemia— Monguls— Turks. 
 
 2 Reformation— causes. 
 1 Eeview. 
 
 1 General state of Europe— draw map. 
 1 Netherlands. 
 1 Review. 
 
 3 Thirty Years' War. 
 1 Louis XIV— Peter the Great. 
 1 Seven Tears' War. 
 1 Review— draw map of Europe. 
 
 1 French Revolution. 
 
 1 State of Europe. 
 
 1 Eeview. 
 
 1 French Wars, 1793-98— Egypt. 
 
 1 Eeview. 
 
 2 French Wars. 1799 to 180i. 
 2 French Wars, 1805 to 1815— map of Europe in 
 
 1812. 
 1 Review. 
 2 Lessons on subsequent events. 
 
 56 Lessons. 
 
 10 Lessons to Water- 
 loo 
 
 A course of weekly lessons in history was also 
 suggested, for the benefit of the First Grade of the 
 Grammar School. It may be proved that some 
 knowledge of history, however slender the amount 
 may be, does not necessarily weaken the mental 
 powers of the pupil ; nor is it demonstrable, as 
 . some maintain, that such knowledge fills the pupil 
 with disgust for the whole subject. Supposing the 
 number of lessons to be thirty-six, the following 
 course was recommended : 
 
 7 Lessons- 
 
 f 1 Ancient Nations. 
 
 2 Geography and Legends. 
 i Greece . - ^ 1 Persian Wars. 
 
 1 Art and Literature. 
 
 -1 
 I 
 
 I 1 Alexander. 
 
 L 1 Eeview. 
 
Teachers' Association. 
 
 69 
 
 6 Lessons. 
 
 7 Lessons. 
 
 3 Lessons. 
 
 9 Lessons. 
 
 4 Lessons.. 
 36 Lessons. 
 
 1 Rome— Geography and Legends 
 
 2 Punic Wars. 
 1 Golden Age. 
 1 Decline. 
 
 . 1 Review. 
 
 1 Migration of Nations. 
 
 2 Maliomet and followers. 
 1 Review. 
 
 1 Charlemagne— (map 843.) 
 1 German Empire and Popes. 
 
 1 Review. 
 
 2 Crusades. 
 
 1 State of Europe. 
 
 1 English Revolution. 
 2' Reformation. 
 1 Review. 
 
 1 Louis XIV. 
 
 2 Thirty Tears' War. 
 
 1 Frederick the Great. 
 1 Keview. 
 
 1 French Revolution. 
 
 2 Napoleon's Wars. 
 1 Review. 
 
 NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 There were but two lessons. Recommended — 
 that but few of the so-called properties of matter be 
 dwelt upon at any length ; that the laws of motion 
 be practically demonstrated ; that the laws of grav- 
 ity should be given with more care than our text- 
 books do (e. g.^ the intensity of gravity, which 
 changes inversely as the square of the distance, not 
 gravity itself) ; and that the phenomena of falling 
 bodies and pendulum be presented as direct effects 
 of one common cause — gravity. Exception made, 
 
J^orlTi-EasUrn OJiio 
 
 perhaps, of optics, the inductive plan should be fol- 
 lowed ; but not lose concentration in bringing up too 
 many facts and experiments; a few, well selected 
 and reasoned over, better than a diffuse variety. 
 Have the class point out that which is common to 
 all the facts and experiments presented, and also 
 that in which they differ ; from the former, proceed 
 to the cause; from the latter, show the variety of 
 effects that cause has. Give a sufficient number of 
 problems in mechanics. Do not require a multitude 
 of showy apparatus ; accustom the pupil to use 
 objects near at hand to experiment with, objects 
 such as a pen, a pencil. India-rubber, a marble, a 
 sling-shot, etc. ; require him to reproduce the draw- 
 ings in the text-books. Take the class to machine 
 shops to examine the hydraulic press and the steam 
 engine ; to the telegraph office ; on board a vessel, if 
 possible, to examine the capstan, pulley, compound 
 lever, endless screw, etc. For reviews, prepare series 
 of questions involving reasoning, such as "Why do 
 we blow coffee to cool it, and our hands to warm 
 them in winter ?' ' There are moments, in the instruc- 
 tion of a class, when even childish questions find a 
 place : ' ' How thick is the earth' s centre % The earth' s 
 axis? Which turns faster, a small wheel or a large 
 one % The earth moving eastward, does it take more 
 powder to shoot eastward or westward % Does a body 
 weigh anything while falling ?' ' There are really but 
 two modes of diffusing heat — Radiation and Conduc- 
 tion, convection being but conduction in fluids ; the 
 steam engine to be developed historically. Show 
 that no force can be lost. Conservation of force. 
 
Teachers' Association. 71 
 
 A number of faulty definitions were examined, 
 and a number of laws given. The time was too 
 short, however, to develop more of method. 
 
 In addition, there were a few lessons in United 
 States History, Algebra and Geometry. 
 
 The peculiar characteristics of the Institute con- 
 sisted in the following points : 
 
 1. Each class was assigned to its room, and kept 
 it during the entire session. 
 
 2. Classes of children were frequently taught in 
 presence of the teachers. 
 
 3. Each instructor was to base his instruction 
 upon the Course of Study. 
 
 4. Lectures on subjects, such as "The Teacher's 
 Work," "Culture," "Popular Education" and 
 "The Teacher's Ideal," which not unfrequently 
 usurp the most valuable time of institutes, were 
 excluded from the regular session hours. 
 
 5. Special care was taken that the entire instruc- 
 tion should be carried on in a tangible, practical 
 manner, so that the teachers attending might learn 
 that which they most needed, and which is not 
 usually contained in books ; and that, on returning 
 to their labor, they might feel the confidence of 
 knowing better how to teach than they did when 
 they first came. 
 
 Anything like a full account of the work done, 
 either as to amount or method, would, at this day, 
 be impossible ; and were it not impossible, would be 
 
72 Tforlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 too extensive for this place. Enough has been given 
 to enable the earnest teacher, of limited experience, 
 to derive much that must prove valuable. The great 
 importance of correct method in teaching cannot be 
 overestimated, since upon the metJiod of instruction 
 depend, in large measure, the habits of thought and 
 investigation of the pupil in after life. Hence the 
 Association has always sought to make investiga- 
 tions into ^'■Methods of Instruction,'''' prominent in 
 the exercises provided for its meetings ; and hence 
 also, in this Institute, method vi^as the chief object. 
 The action of the Association, at the close of the 
 Institute, may be here given. At a meeting held in 
 the Central High School hall, Sept. 9, 1870, the 
 following was adopted by a unanimous vote : 
 
 Wheeeas, The Normal Institute, under the 
 auspices of the North -Eastern Ohio Teachers' 
 Association, jiist held in Cleveland, has been a 
 complete success, and will, as we believe, result in 
 much benefit to those in attendance ; and 
 
 Whereas, This is mainly due to the efficient 
 labors of the Committee of Arrangements and the 
 able instructors provided by them ; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That the most hearty thanks of the 
 members of the Institute are hereby given to the 
 Committee ; to the instructors, for their able presen- 
 tation of the several subjects assigned to them ; to 
 
TeacTiers' sissocialion. 73 
 
 the Board of Education of Cleveland, for the nse of 
 the Central High School building; to the several 
 boards of education which arranged for the attend- 
 ance of their teachers. 
 
 Resolved, That we earnestly recommend the Asso- 
 ciation to provide for a similar institute to be held in 
 Cleveland next year. 
 
 For the purpose contemplated in the last resolu- 
 tion, the following committee was appointed : R. W. 
 Stevenson, Daniel Worley, I. M. Clemens. 
 
 The numerous railroads meeting at Cleveland, 
 thus affording an opportunity to attend the meet- 
 ings and return the same day, have determined the 
 Association to hold most of its meetings in that 
 city. A number of meetings, however, by vote of 
 the Association, have been held in other places. 
 Twice it has met at Akron, once each at Ravenna, 
 Alliance, Elyria, Warren and Oberlin. These out- 
 side meetings were held in the several place's named, 
 on invitation of the superintendents and teachers of 
 these cities. Such meetings have been among the 
 most interesting and most profitable ones held. The 
 interest manifested in the proceedings by the citi- 
 zens of these cities, the generous welcome extended, 
 the large provision made for the comfort of mem- 
 bers, have given the most ample assurance that the 
 
74 JStorth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 faithful teacher has, at all times, in the discharge of 
 his duty, the confidence and the support of the 
 community. 
 
 There have been other advantages from these 
 meetings. Teachers do not deny that the tend- 
 ency of their work is, to some extent, calculated to 
 isolate them, in thought and feeling, from the active 
 business interests of the world. They admit, too, 
 that in so far as this becomes true of them, a cer- 
 tain valuable power is lost. At this meeting the 
 members have had the pleasure of meeting active 
 business men and of exchanging views with them — 
 of learning from them. The business men have 
 thus, for the time, become the teachers of the 
 teachers. It is possible that it has been for the 
 good of both parties. Then, too, it has been at 
 these meetings that such treats as Dr. Bowen's 
 poem, "Crown the Teacher," and President 
 Fairchild's most interesting and instructive ad- 
 dress on "English Universities" have been 
 enjoyed. 
 
 At the meeting held at Warren, June 13, 1874, 
 Superintendent E. F. Moulton, of Oberlin, read a 
 paper (printed in this volume) on "Examinations 
 AND Promotions." In the discussion of this paper 
 it was charged that our system of examinations for 
 
Teachers' Association. 75 
 
 promotion is destructive of the physical constitu- 
 tions of our children. It was asserted that the 
 whole system is a hot-house, forcing process, ruin- 
 ing health and failing to make scholars, and further 
 it was claimed, that prominent physicians attributed 
 the ill-health of many young people to pernicious 
 hot-house cramming in our schools. 
 
 A question of so great importance as the health 
 of children might well challenge the most careful 
 attention of a body organized for educational pur- 
 poses — avowedly organized for the consideration of 
 questions pertaining to the best interests of sound 
 education. That our system of education is ruining 
 the health of American youth is a charge familiar 
 to all. It comes from parents, from physicians, and 
 not unfrequently appears in our magazines and 
 newspapers, and sometimes in our educational jour- 
 nals. Teachers are perhaps too apt to charge the 
 causes of ill-health back to causes antecedent to, or 
 outside of school duties. 
 
 That the whole subject might be brought before 
 the Association well considered and carefully ar- 
 ranged, President B. A. Hinsdale, of Hiranfi College, 
 was made a special committee for that purpose. 
 
 Accordingly at the meeting held Oct. 10, 1874, 
 President Hinsdale read a very able paper (printed in 
 
76 ^forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 this volume) on the question, "/* th<i 'physical 
 power of pupils in the public schools overtaxed hy 
 study r 
 
 President Hinsdale claimed that there have not 
 been collected sufficient data to warrant any very 
 definite answer to the question argued, and sug- 
 gested that steps be taken to make an answer 
 reasonably safe. In furtherance of this end, Hon. 
 Thos. W. Harvey, Andr. J. Rickoff and Dr. S. G. 
 Williams were appointed a special committee for 
 such purpose. 
 
 A circular letter was prepared and sent by this 
 committee to physicians, asking whether it was 
 their opinion that children are overtaxed in school, 
 and whether the ill-health of so large a number of 
 young persons is properly chargeable to a demand 
 for excessive study imposed by teachers or school 
 officers. The answers received were numerous, and 
 mostly giving it as the conviction that there was 
 ground for the charge. The answers received fur- 
 nished no reasons for the judgment arrived at — left 
 fhe committee in ignorance of the case or cases fur- 
 nishing the data for the physician's judgment. A 
 more carefully prepared circular was then sent out. 
 It was felt that if the questions in this should be 
 properly answered, the responsibility for school 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 77 
 
 conditions might be, in great measure, classified: 
 whether to boards of education, or to teachers ; or 
 whether the responsibility for ill-health must not, in 
 great measure, be charged to parents and guardians, 
 for permitting injurious excesses within their con- 
 trol and beyond the control of school authorities. 
 The questions contained in this circular have not 
 yet been answered, i. e., the Association has not 
 yet received, through its committeee, answers to 
 them. Indeed only one or two replies have been 
 received, although the circular was sent to more 
 than a hundred physicians. It cannot be that 
 physicians have not sufficient interest in the phys- 
 ical health of our children and youth to make 
 answer to ihe questions addressed to them. The 
 circular is as follows: 
 
 The undersigned, having been appointed by the 
 North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association a com- 
 mittee to investigate the causes of the alleged ill- 
 health of school children, would heartily solicit 
 your co-operation in making such investigation full 
 and definite, and would respectfully request from 
 you answers to the following questions : 
 
 1. Has any case come under your professional notice in 
 which injury has resulted to pupils of schools from too close 
 application to study, or from circumstances connected with 
 the school room ? 
 
78 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 2; If so, will you have the goodness to give in full the 
 name and age of the person, with the school attended, and 
 the name and address of the parent or guardian, as also that 
 of the superintendent or principal. 
 
 3. Will you describe the case and its results. 
 
 4. Was there in this case any hereditary predisposition 
 to disease? 
 
 5. Were there any influences connected with the habit- 
 ation, diet or mode of life of the patient's family that would 
 be likely to dispose him to disease? 
 
 6. Had improper or insufficient clothing, in your opinion, 
 anything to do with the incipient stages of the disease ? 
 
 7. Was this person in the habit of reading sensational 
 or other novels, and to what extent, if any, might his state 
 be attributable to this class of reading? 
 
 8. Did the, patient spend much time in society out of 
 school ? 
 
 9. What amount of study out of school was required of 
 the pupil, and how much, in your judgment, might safely 
 have been required of him ? 
 
 10. To what extent might the patient's symptoms be 
 attributable to ill-yentilation of the school room ? 
 
 11. To what extent were they due to improper form and 
 dimensions of the seat and desk occupied by the child in 
 school? 
 
 13. If the patient was a girl at the age of puberty, how 
 far was the disease attributable to, or were the symptoms 
 aggravated by too severe mental strain, or by improper 
 confinement in the school during the catamenial period? 
 
 13. Had any marked attention been given by the parents 
 to the physical education of the child ? 
 
 14. If there were other circumstances connected with 
 the case which you think would aid us in this investigation 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 79 
 
 into the health of school children, will you do us the favor 
 to mention them. 
 
 Please to address your reply to S. Gr. Williams, 
 428 Case avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 TH08. HARVEY, 
 ANDREW J. RICKOFP, 
 8. G. WILLIAMS, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Association has been organized over six 
 years, and has failed of but one meeting in all 
 that time. Its discussions have all been interest- 
 ing, the papers read have been profitable, and the 
 class exercises models of good teaching. 
 
 It is gratifying to feel that the work of the 
 teacher has been placed in a light commanding 
 the esteem of the community, in greater measure 
 through its agency ; that those who have attended 
 its meetings have been greatly strengthened for 
 duty thereby ; that a feeling of kind solicitude for 
 one another's prosperity has always characterized 
 the personal relations of the members; that no 
 wrangling or selfish ambition has ever stepped in 
 to mar the harmony of the proceedings ; and that 
 the prospect for continued prospei-ity and useful- 
 ness of the organization is greater than at any 
 previous time. 
 
80 J^orlTi-EasUrn OTiio 
 
 Under wise guidance and a continuance of the 
 spirit animating tlie present members of the organ- 
 ization, the amount of good that may be done by 
 the Association in the years that are to come cannot 
 fail to be very great. It was hardly expected by 
 the most hopeful of these who organized the Associ- 
 ation, that it would accomplish anything like what 
 it has already done. The importance of such organ- 
 izations must increase as we near the time when 
 "men shall beat their swords into plow-shares and 
 their spears into pruning-hooks." May the Asso- 
 ciation go forward in its great work, through all 
 the years of our beloved country's second century 
 of existence, undisturbed by foreign or domestic 
 strife. 
 
 The following is a complete list of the officers 
 elected after the first year: 
 
 Fob 1871. Eleoted January H, 1871. 
 
 President — Thos. W. Hakvbt, Paiaesville. 
 Vice-President — S. Findlet, Akron. 
 Secretary — Miss Cornelia H. Saundbks, Cleveland. 
 Treasurer — C. S. Bbagg, Cleveland. 
 Executive Oomniittee — A. J. Eickofe, Cleveland; S. G. 
 Barnard, Medina; S. G. Williams, Cleveland. 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 81 
 
 For 1872. Elected December 11, 1871. 
 
 President — Hon. Thos. W. Harvey, Painesville. 
 Vice-President — Judge S. G. Babnaed, EaTenna. 
 Secretary — Alex. Forbes, Cleyeland. 
 Treasurer — L. W. Day, Oleyelaud. 
 Executive Committee — S. Fin'dley, Akron ; A. J. 
 EiCKOFF, Cleyeland; G-. N". Oabbuthees, Elyria. 
 
 For 1873. Elected December H, 1872. 
 
 President — Hon. Thos. W. Hartey, PainesTille. 
 Vice-President — Mrs. IST. A. Stone, Akron. 
 Secretary — Alex. Forbes, Cleyaland. 
 Treasurer — L. W. Day, Cleveland. 
 Executive Committee — E. McMillan, Youngsfcown ; 
 Kate E. Stephan, Cleyeland ; I. M. Clemen's, A.slitabula. 
 
 Fob 187Jk. Elected December IS, 187S. 
 
 President — Hon. Thos. W. Harvey, Painesville. 
 Vice-President — Miss M. Parsons, Akron. 
 Secretary — L. W. Day, Cleveland. 
 Treasurer — W. E. Wean, Wellington. 
 Executive Committee — E. P. Moulton, Oberlin; E. E. 
 Spaulding, Painesville; Harriet L. Keeler, Cleveland. 
 
 For 1875. Elected December 12, 1874- 
 President— I. M. Clemens, Wooster. 
 Vice-President — Harriet L. Keeler, Cleveland. 
 Secretary — C. L. Hotzb, Cleveland. 
 Treasurer— S. Findlby, Akron. 
 
 Executive Committee— R. M. Parker, Elyria; E. F. 
 Moulton, Oberlin ; G-. T. McAlmont, Madison, 
 
 6 
 
82 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 For 1876. Elected December 11, 1875. 
 
 President — H. M. Paekek, Elyria. 
 Vice-President — Miss P. H. GooDwisr, Akron. 
 Secretary — L. L. Campbell, Mineral Eidge. 
 Treasurer — J. F. Lukens, Wooster. 
 Executive Committee — Alex. Forbes, Cleyeland; A. J. 
 Michael, MonroeTille ; J. P. WiLSOK, Ashtabula. 
 
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES. 
 
 IlSrAUGUEAL ADDRESS OP THOS. W. HARVEY. 
 
 [It is to be regretted that the manuscript of this valuable address- 
 has been lost. A brief synopsis may indicate the more important 
 topics presented. — ^Ed.] 
 
 Having thanked the Association for the honor 
 conferred on him, he alluded briefly to the advant- 
 ages of combined action on the part of teachers and 
 friends of educational progress. Responsibilities 
 have been assumed by the profession; the public, 
 our patrons, insist upon a faithful performance of 
 duties; let us all engage earnestly in any work 
 thought best to be undertaken. Differences in 
 opinion exist among us, and no one claims to be 
 free from whims and prejudices; but by taking 
 counsel together our views may be made to har- 
 monize, and by working together we shall learn to 
 be tolerant and charitable. 
 
 The schools of to-day were compared with those 
 of twenty years ago.. The means and agencies then 
 
84 T^orth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 deemed sufficient for their conduct and efficiency 
 are now known and acknowledged to be inade- 
 quate. But while the schools in our towns and 
 cities have made marked- progress, and now rank 
 high among the best of their kind in the Union, 
 those in the rural districts have not improved as 
 they might have done. In some localities, no pro- 
 gress whatever has been made. 
 
 The reasons for this state of affairs are apparent. 
 Our towns and cities have been increasing rapidly 
 in wealth and population. In the establishment and 
 organization of schools they have not been ham- 
 pered by precedents to be overruled, or hindered 
 by ill-advised, half-finished work to be re-modeled 
 or thrown aside. They have also employed super- 
 vision, that essential element of success, in their 
 management. In the country, changes in indus- 
 trial pursuits have been attended by a decrease in 
 the number of pupils attending the schools; no 
 determined effort has been made to consolidate sub- 
 districts; the money expended in many of these 
 sub-districts has not been sufficient to sustain good 
 schools the required length of time each year ; the 
 machinery for the management of school affairs has 
 been cumbrous and unwieldy ; and the schools have 
 been practically without supervision. Efforts should 
 
Teachers' Association. 85 
 
 be made to remedy these defects. Unless they are 
 remedied we may look in vain for any encouraging 
 signs of progress. One important item of work for 
 this Association, is the discussion of ways and means 
 whereby the "people's college" can be made what 
 it should be. 
 
 The classification of our graded schools and the 
 courses of study pursued in them demand imme- 
 diate revision. They differ so essentially, that 
 whenever a pupil removes from one town or city 
 to another, the determination of the grade to which 
 he belongs is a difficult task. There is no good 
 reason why uniformity, or a near approximation 
 thereto, cannot be secured, both in classification 
 and courses of study. The advantages of such a 
 uniformity cannot. easily be overestimated. A pupil 
 ought to be enabled to continue his studies without 
 discouraging interruptions and hindrances, where- 
 ever he may be ; and a statement, made by compe- 
 tent authority, that he has completed the studies of 
 any grade and is prepared for promotion to the 
 next, should be a "legal tender" throughout the 
 State. Let this Association take the initiative, 
 grapple with this problem and solve it. 
 
 During the past few years our attention has been 
 called to new methods of teaching. It is desirable 
 
86 J^orlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 that these methods should be more extensively 
 known than they are, and that those which can 
 Ibe demonstrated to be improvements should be 
 more generally adopted. The discussion of the 
 philosophy which underlies them and exhibitions 
 of the proficiency of classes taught . by teachers 
 trained in their use, will undoubtedly be interest- 
 ing features in our proceedings. 
 
 Allusion was made to the attempt to prohibit the 
 reading of the Bible in the public schools. The 
 teaching of the peculiar dogmas of any religious 
 sect or denomination in the public schools is wisely 
 prohibited. A conscientious teacher, however, be- 
 lieves that permission to read the Bible is not 
 simply a courtesy to be granted, but, under proper 
 restrictions, a right to be demanded, whenever he 
 desires to use its teachings in moral culture. Bible 
 reading in the schools need not make them secta- 
 rian or denominational. It has not done so in the 
 past, as every intelligent teacher well knows — why 
 should we fear that it will do so in the future ? 
 
 In conclusion, unselfish devotion to the duties of 
 his calling was urged as a debt each teacher owes 
 to the profession. The true teacher is a faithful, 
 untiring worker, not a dreamer or an impractica- 
 ble theorizer. In his school he labors diligently 
 
Teachers' Association. 87 
 
 to educate and instruct the youth intrusted to his 
 care; out of school he is a missionary among his 
 patrons, giving direction to thought and rousing 
 the apathetic to action. 
 
 CROWIf THE TEACHER, 
 
 A STOEY OF OLYMPUS. 
 
 BT W. BOWEN, M. D., AKRON. 
 
 When Ceres watched the growing grain, 
 And fed it light and hro't it rain; 
 And as the season onward rolled 
 Aye tipt its ripening ears with gold. 
 And brought the harvest on apace. 
 And blest it with abundant grace. 
 Then, too, the peach and apple's blush 
 Were tints from good Pomona's brush. 
 'Twas her's the orchard's life to sway — 
 To keep the canker-worm away, 
 To bar the approaches of the blight, 
 And temper frosts that else would bite 
 The fruit-tree's bloom, and thus destroy 
 The husbandman's expected joy. 
 Each blossom that in beauty stood 
 And shed its perfume in the wood. 
 Or decked the mead or gay parterre. 
 To Flora turned for guardian care ; 
 Nor turned in vain, for she would bless 
 
88 Tlorlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 The queenly rose, nor yet the less 
 
 Extend her kindly aid, I wot, . 
 
 To the daisy or forget-me-not. 
 
 'Twas then (but 'tis not Tcry clear 
 
 As to the day or month or year) 
 
 The gods tarned out, the legend says, 
 
 As folks do now on gala days. 
 
 There Juno's peacocks drew her ear> 
 
 Mars flashed his sword and wore a star. 
 
 Chaste Dian came in bloomers — then 
 
 The gods ne'er laughed like foolish men, 
 
 Jifor made remarks, nor stood to stare 
 
 At gown a goddess chose to wear. 
 
 Venus appeared; around her zone 
 
 The love-compelling girdle shone, 
 
 That witching band, by Juno tried 
 
 To win her husband to her side 
 
 When lo or Buropa smiled, 
 
 And from her lore her lord beguiled; 
 
 But much it grieves the muse to tell 
 
 The rake was proof against the spell. 
 
 Bellona came; helmet aad shield 
 
 Gleamed bright as when on Ilion's field 
 
 The Trojan ranks met sore dismay 
 
 If she were with the Greeks that day. 
 
 Iris came too; each gorgeous dye 
 
 That gemmed her bow that span'd the sky, 
 
 When prisms sprung from light and storm 
 
 Shone in the robe that wrapt her form. 
 
 Others of lesser note came out 
 
 Prom court and camp, a sky-born rout. 
 
 What passing wonder, then. 
 
 That set the gods agog like men ? 
 
Teachers' Association. 89 
 
 'Twas not that Mars had on his hand 
 
 A town to sack, or waste a land ; 
 
 But JoTe had joy, and in his mind 
 
 Grew deeper love for human kind ; 
 
 For sure 'tis no uncommon thing 
 
 That generous acts from gladness spring. 
 
 He looked below, and o'er the earth 
 
 Saw wrong stalk forth, of monster birth — 
 
 The seraph out, the demon in, 
 
 And all man's nature stained with sin. 
 
 Here falsehood ruled, there hate and strife 
 
 Ban'd the brief span of human life. 
 
 The grieved Astrea fled away — 
 
 Host strove 'gainst host in fierce array; 
 
 The neck of nations bent to feel 
 
 The iron of the oppressor's heel; 
 
 And desecrated shrine and fane 
 
 Confessed the day of Moloch's reign. 
 
 Yet 'midst this darkness of the soul 
 
 That spread from tropic to the pole. 
 
 Rose here and there a dauntless few. 
 
 Who battled for the good and true. 
 
 And strove by deed or spoken word, 
 
 Or pen, far mightier than the sword 
 
 To chase that moral night away 
 
 And usher in a glorious day. 
 
 To these Jove gave his high regard, 
 
 And fain would grant them meet reward. 
 
 The wish was father to the deed — 
 
 He bade light-footed Hermes speed 
 
 To every land of every sea, 
 
 Where'er those toilers' homes might be, 
 
 And bid them to his court repair. 
 
90 'North-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 For hearing and right judgment there; 
 
 And he who, more than all the rest, 
 
 Has served his fellow man the best 
 
 Shall there be crowned by sacred hands, 
 
 The chief of all earth's hero bands. 
 
 Then forth from orient climes, where grow 
 
 The stately palms; from lands of snow. 
 
 Where the dark pine tree's branches sigh 
 
 To winter winds that wander by; 
 
 And from the south, and the broad west. 
 
 Where sinks the day to take his rest. 
 
 Each candidate expectant came, 
 
 And in brief speech prefer'd his claim. 
 
 The Warrior said : " My armor's sheen 
 
 On fields of blood has oft been seen; 
 
 Oft I was foremost in the strife. 
 
 Where ebbing fast were streams of life; 
 
 For I had raised my good right arm 
 
 Between my country's life and harm. 
 
 He who is first to draw his blade 
 
 When foes his country's soil invade. 
 
 Or battles for a land oppressed, 
 
 Must surely serve his fellow best. 
 
 The hero holds high place among 
 
 The great, whose deeds our bards have sung." 
 
 The Priest arose — in solemn tone 
 
 He claimed the guerdon as his own. 
 
 "'Tis mine," he said, "whete altars rise 
 
 To guard the rite of sacrifice. 
 
 I taught old Egypt's race to bow 
 
 To Apis and the sacred cow; 
 
 I bade the Northmen, armed for war, 
 
 Propitiate the mighty Thor. 
 
Teachers' Association. 91 
 
 And if the harvests suffered blights, 
 
 At Ceres' fane performed her rites, 
 
 So she would send the needed rain, 
 
 Nor blast the growing crops again." 
 
 The Bard stood forth. " 'Tis mine," he said, 
 
 " To touch the heart, to teach the head. 
 
 Oft as I swept the epic lyre 
 
 Warm glowed the breast with patriot fire, 
 
 Till every one that listening stood 
 
 Became a hero in his mood. 
 
 "When Priam's graceless scion bore 
 
 Frail Helen from her throne and shore. 
 
 And Greece pursued the scapegrace boy 
 
 Back to the frowning walls of Troy, 
 
 And ten long years of bootless strife 
 
 Were waged for the fair, faithless wife, 
 
 Our hero's deeds had found no tongue 
 
 Had not the bard of Scio sung. 
 
 The glory Grecian valor won 
 
 At Salamis or Marathon, 
 
 Had faded with the passing time 
 
 But for the epic's stately rhyme." 
 
 The Painter boasted of his art, 
 
 So like divine that life would start 
 
 Beneath his touch, till face and form 
 
 Glowed on his canvas soft and warm, 
 
 As if his^pencil gave them breath 
 
 And he had triumphed over death ; 
 
 And he could catch and show anew 
 
 The fitful north-light's changing hue, 
 
 Or seize the sunset's golden dyes, 
 
 Or morning's tints in eastern skies, 
 
 And blend them in one radiant whole. 
 
92 J^orih-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 And pour their glories on the soul. 
 
 The Orator made large pretense, 
 
 And vaunted much his eloquence. 
 
 "He makes," he said, "his land rejoice 
 
 Who for it lifts his patriot voice. 
 
 And wakes and warns the slumbering State 
 
 When dangers lower or evils wait. 
 
 No power so much men's souls has stir'd, 
 
 As the impassioned spoken word 
 
 That breaks (when noble themes inspire) 
 
 Prom tongues of flame or lips of fire." 
 
 He ceased, and the mute listeners deemed 
 
 The contest o'er, and so it seemed ; 
 
 When all unheralded by fame. 
 
 And half abashed, the Teacher came, 
 
 And modestly preferred Ms claim. 
 
 He looked not stern, for he was made 
 
 Not to command but to persuade ; 
 
 A'gentle nature you might trace 
 
 In every line that marked his face — 
 
 A face in which a child might see 
 
 He kept large play-ground on his knee. 
 
 His brow was broad and high; his hair, 
 
 That in his younger day was fair,. 
 
 Though age came not, nor health's decay, 
 
 Was now grown thin and streaked with gray. 
 
 In speech, deportment and in mien 
 
 Life's nice proprieties were seen ; 
 
 He seem'd a model man, in sooth — 
 
 A fitting friend and guide for youth. 
 
 "'Tis not for us," he said, "oh, sire! 
 
 To flout at claims of sword or lyre, 
 
 Or priestly ofiBce, or the art 
 
Teachers' slssociation. 93 
 
 The painter boasts — nor yet the part 
 
 That stirring eloquence must play 
 
 When soul and sense confess its sway. 
 
 We mock not these, for well we know 
 
 The power they exercise below ; 
 
 But they who wield these wondrous powers, 
 
 In school-boy days were charge of ours. 
 
 We trained the arm that wields the sword; 
 
 We taught the hand that sweeps the chord 
 
 And wakes its music — simple lays 
 
 Of noble deeds of other days. 
 
 We taught the bardling how to sing, 
 
 That his young muse might try her wing, 
 
 Till by such tasks he grew apace 
 
 In all a poet's strength and grace. 
 
 So we to reverence turned the heart 
 
 Of him who labored to impart 
 
 The sacred mysteries of the shrine, 
 
 (High functions of the priestly line.) 
 
 Painter and orator no less 
 
 Our early guiding hand confess. 
 
 For 'tis the Teacher's task to take 
 
 The life yet young — to form and niake 
 
 It beautiful and pure, ere time 
 
 Shall bring it sin, or taint of crime. 
 
 What fame the warrior wins in arms, 
 
 Howe'er the bard instructs or charms, 
 
 Whate'er of good the priest pursues. 
 
 What orator or painter does, 
 
 With voice, or pencil's wizard powers, 
 
 Is grand achievement, yet, of ours — 
 
 They were our pupils." Ceased he then. 
 
 When rose a shout from gods and men : 
 
94 MrlTi-Easlern Ohio 
 
 "Crown the Teacher! Crowa him now 
 With wreath for aa immo^rtal's brow. 
 Crown the Teacher ! he hath skill 
 To mold aright the heart and will; 
 To shape the 'Future Man' — to be 
 Earth's arbiter of destiny. 
 Crown him! He of all the rest 
 Has served his fellow man the best." 
 
 HOW TO PRESERVE THE EYES. 
 
 BY A. METZ, M. D., MASSILLION. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Oenflemen : 
 
 It is through our senses that we gain all our 
 knowledge of the material universe. To keep in 
 good condition these channels of communication 
 between the outer world and the brain or mind, is 
 acknowledged by all to be of highest importance. 
 Without the senses man would be a mere vegetative 
 organism. Without vision life is so maimed and 
 dred,ry as to be scarcely desirable. The more acute 
 the senses, the greater is the capacity for happiness 
 and intellectual enjoyment. The great G-raefe said 
 that whilst many have tried to portray the horrors 
 of blindness, and poets have written on the subject, 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 95 
 
 only one person can know tlie nnfathomable depth, 
 of despair it causes, and that is the man who once 
 enjoyed good sight but now is blind. Yet this 
 wonderful organ of vision is more abused than any 
 other organ in the body, being overtasked day and 
 night. 
 
 I shall not spend time on the 'reckless sinners, 
 who sin against knowledge, and who only need 
 moral remedies, but pass on to that class of sin- 
 ners who sin for want of knowledge, and need 
 scientific truth for their guidance ; and it is in 
 behalf of this innocent class of sufferers that I 
 have presumed to appear before you, to make an 
 appeal to you — ^to try to enlist your sympathy and 
 exertions in the effort to do a great benevolent 
 work. No class of community can work so effec- 
 tually as you can in this direction. The teachers 
 are more intelligent and observe more closely than 
 the average of parents; and it is my acquaintance 
 with the fact of your intelligence, your zeal for all 
 that concerns the welfare of the children under 
 your training, during the most important period of 
 their physical and mental development, that has 
 made me bold enough to appear before you to-day. 
 During the twelve thousand hours that the average 
 of children are under your care during attendance 
 
96 JiorlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 in our union schools, you can do much toward 
 imparting useful information tending to the pres- 
 ervation of this important sense — this "window of 
 the soul," and exert your influence in various 
 tvays: 
 
 1. By seeing that the scholars are well supplied 
 with good light from the proper direction. 
 
 2. That the print of the school books is distinct, 
 and not too small. 
 
 3. That the posture of the pupils is correct, and 
 that the seats and desks are graded according to 
 
 .size and age. 
 
 4. By noticing defects in sight in children, and 
 calling the attention of parents to the fact, and 
 urging the importance of an investigation into the 
 character of the defect, so that faults in the refract- 
 ive power of the eyes shall not lead to great suffering 
 and irreparable injury to the organ of vision. 
 
 I. Light is the essential excitant of the retina, 
 and in a certain sense is its nutrition. Without light 
 the retina will atrophy like a muscle not exercised. 
 The best — the natural light is the white daylight. 
 In a certain time not too much nor too little light is 
 recLuired for the healthy action of the eye. Too 
 much light causes dazzling, with more or less pain 
 and dimness of vision. The sudden change from 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaiion. 97 
 
 darkness to light is injurious and causes pain. 
 The function of vision is brought about by the 
 destruction of retinal cells. These cells are rapidly 
 replaced from the blood by the nutritive process. 
 When the transition from darkness and rest into 
 too strong a light is too sudden, the disintegration 
 of retinal cells is too rapid, the nutritive process not 
 having time to neutralize the destruction by repair, 
 and the retina suffers. By looking at the sun, 
 persons have so injured the retina that perfect 
 repair has never taken place and a permanent 
 dark spot remains in the field of vision. 
 
 Too long continued exposure to a bright light 
 will either blunt the retina, or else it v?ill cause a 
 morbid sensitiveness, so that ordinary daylight can- 
 not be tolerated. But the dangers arising from 
 working long in relative want of light are more 
 insidious and often overlooked. This will bring 
 about slowly, but surely, a morbid sensitiveness of 
 the retina. Many school rooms are poorly lighted ; 
 it is not true to-day to the extent it was some years 
 ago. Dark curtains and closed shutters are to be 
 condemned, both in school rooms and private houses. 
 
 An unsteady light is injurious, as, for instance, 
 the coal gas in common use, which gives a tremu- 
 lous light, caused by its mixture with atmospheric 
 
98 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 air and vapors of water, (Manz, Lectures on the 
 Hygiene of the Eye,) hence in reading or writing 
 a long time in such a light a shade should be used. 
 The school houses should stand clear from other 
 houses, and from all obstructions to light. The 
 windows ought to be in the south or east. The best 
 direction for light is from the pupil's left side, so as 
 not to oast a shadow on the page from the hand and 
 pen when writing. The next best direction for light 
 is from the back, so as to light up the page, and 
 have the rays of light directly reflected to the eye. 
 We must remember that light is an activity — a 
 mode of motion that travels rapidly in straight lines 
 in oscillatory waves. Hence, we must avoid rays of 
 lightfrom opposite directions. It has been demon- 
 strated that two brilliant pencils of rays coming 
 from opposite directions, concentrated on a curtain, 
 neutralize each other, and a dark spot is seen where 
 the opposing rays meet. Dr. Cohn, of Germany, 
 who is an authority on this siibject, estimates that 
 each window should be one hundred inches high 
 and sixty inches vride, and that there ought to be 
 one such window for every twenty pupils, so that 
 each one will have three hundred square inches of 
 glass. The walls of the room should be white, and 
 also the blinds or shades to the windows ought to be 
 
Teachers' Association. 99 
 
 of the same color. The least objectional deviation 
 from pure white is a light grey color. 
 
 If, from the above enumerated abuses, or from 
 others that will be considered, the retina — the 
 impressible nerve membrane — should become con- 
 gested, become hypersesthetic or over sensitive, so 
 that daylight cannot be tolerated without pain and 
 detriment to the eye, then we must modify the light 
 until recovery can take place, just as food has to be 
 modified to the degree of tolerance of the irritable 
 stomach. 
 
 From time immemorial — beyond the time of 
 Plinius — green was used to protect the irritable 
 retina, and even now we see many persons wearing 
 green spectacles. Since Bohm wrote on the good 
 eflfects of blue colored glasses, in 1858, blue has been 
 extensively used for protection against strong light. 
 More recently those colors are abandoned for the 
 purpose above named by ophthalmologists. Blue is 
 now used rarely, and then only to arouse retinal 
 activity in atony, or in partial atrophy of the retina. 
 Manz has truly said that the use of the solar 
 spectrum proves that the maxima of intensity of 
 illumination and power of impressing the retina do 
 not fall together ; but he, perhaps, is in error when 
 he says that the greatest strength of light is in the 
 
100 JHorin-EasUrn OMo 
 
 red end of the spectrum, whilst the point that 
 impresses the retina most strongly is to be found in 
 the yellow part. 
 
 It is true that rays of weaker refraction, as yellow 
 and red, make a strong impression on the retina by 
 their brilliancy and vividness, but in their charac- 
 teristics as colors their impression on the retina 
 is comparatively feeble. On the other hand, the 
 rays more powerfully refracted, as blue and violet, 
 as colors, impress the retina powerfully, but in 
 vividness feebly. In their characteristics as colors 
 the impression on the retina increases gradually 
 from the extreme red, with its four hundred and 
 fifty-eight trillion waves per second, to the extreme 
 violet, with its seven hundred and twenty- seven 
 trillion waves per second. Tyndal asserts that 
 color is dependent on vibration of rays, red being 
 produced by waves that undulate a third less 
 rapidly than those which produce the sensation of 
 violet. This proves that green and blue are unfit 
 for protection of the irritable retina from strong 
 light. 
 
 Without entering further into the subject of 
 colored light, I will merely say that autliorities now 
 agree that grey or smoke colored glass is the proper | 
 
 protection from too strong light, which simply * 
 
Teachers' :>lssociation. 101 
 
 excludes quantitative light, and excludes all colors 
 equally. The lightest tinge that will sufficiently 
 protect should be selected, and worn no longer than 
 necessity demands. 
 
 II. Print. — In order to save the straining of the 
 accommodation of the eye, the type ought to be 
 large enough and the letters black enough and clear. 
 It is estimated by Snellen that the smallest sized 
 letter that the normal eye can readily perceive at 
 the distance of a foot, is one of an angle of five min- 
 utes. His test types are so arranged that the letters 
 are always seen at that angle. No. 1 can be read at 
 the distance of one foot, No. 2 at two feet, No. 20 at 
 twenty feet, and so on, the letters always being seen 
 at an angle of five minutes. Text-books ought not 
 to have type smaller than Snellen's No. 3, which can 
 be seen readily at the distance of three feet. There 
 seems to be an improvement in the clearness and 
 size of letters of recent school-books. 
 
 III. Seats. — Every cause that tends to keep the 
 eye engorged with blood, assists in developing 
 myopy and other diseased conditions. This engorge- 
 ment increases the hydrostatic tension of the eye- 
 ball, which aids the accommodative eflbrts to elon- 
 gate the globe, and cause the posterior wall of the 
 eye-ball to give way and cause posterior staphyloma. 
 
103 T^orlTi-Easlern Ohio 
 
 It is cruel to compel an overgrown boy of sixteen 
 years of age to occupy a seat and desk that will 
 suit a small boy of ten years of age. He will have 
 to bend forward in order to see to read and write on 
 his desk, and in this manner he strains his eyes and 
 keeps them in a state of engorgement during all the 
 hours of school. Seats and desks ought, by all 
 means, to be graded according to the size of the 
 scholars. School rooms ought to be constructed 
 and seated under the supervision of intelligent 
 superintendents. 
 
 IV. Faults iisr the Refractive Power of the 
 Eyes. — In order to render myself comprehensible to 
 those unfamiliar with the structure of the eye, it 
 will be necessary to describe the parts concerned in 
 the refraction and accommodation of the eye. The 
 outer tunic of the eye-ball is a firm fibrous mem- 
 brane ; the opaque portion, the sclerotica, comprises 
 five-sixths of the entire membrane, and the anterior 
 transparent one-sixth being called the cornea, which 
 forms a part of the dioptric apparatus, and with the 
 aqueous humor immediately back of it, it may be 
 considered as a plano-convex lens. Back of the 
 aqueous humor we have the crystalline lens, a 
 bi-convex concentrating lens, the posterior surface 
 of which rests in an excavation of the vitreous 
 
Teachers' slssocialion. 103 
 
 humor, over the convex surface of the latter the 
 retina or sensitive nerve membrane expands like a 
 transparent paste, but which is a most complex 
 nervous organization, on which the real images 
 of objects are cast. This, then, in brief, is the 
 refracting portion of the visual organ. 
 
 The eye possesses also the wonderful power of 
 self-adaptation for near or for far sight, which act is 
 called the power of accommodation. The organ of 
 accommodation is the ciliary muscle, which has its 
 larger extremity just behind the cornea, being in 
 contact externally with the sclerotica, running back 
 two and a half to three lines, terminating in an apex 
 posteriorly. It possesses voluntary and organic 
 muscular fibres, and is as much under the control 
 of the will as is the little finger. By contraction of 
 its voluntary fibres, the antero-posterior diameter of 
 the lens is increased, and the eye is accommodated 
 for seeing near objects. 
 
 In Fig. 1 an eye is represented as normal in its 
 refractive power ; such an eye is called an emetropic 
 eye. Parallel rays of light are concentrated on the 
 retina at a. In Fig. 2 a myopic eye is illustrated. 
 This is an oblong or pear-shaped eye, and its antero- 
 posterior diameter is too long. Parallel rays are 
 brought to a focus in front of the retina, at 6, whilst 
 
104 
 
 T^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Fial 
 
 it requires divergent rays comiug from a to be 
 brought to a focus on the retina at a! . 
 
 In Fig. 3 we see a hypermetropic eye — too flat, 
 with its antero-posterior diameter too short. Conse- 
 quently, parallel rays are not brought to a focus on 
 the retina, but the point 6', behind the retina. It 
 .requires convergent rays to form a focus on the 
 retina at al'. 
 
 Besides the above forms of anomaly of refraction, 
 there is the astigmatic eye, constituted by different 
 refractive power in the different meridians of the 
 same eye, causing distortion of images. It is caused 
 mostly by irregularities on the corneal surface. This 
 last form is too complex for consideration here. 
 
 A. Myopy. — We have indicated above that 
 
TeacTiers' lAssocialion. 105' 
 
 myopy consists in malformation of the eye. The 
 eye is pear-shaped, and its optic axis becomes 
 elongated, so that parallel rays of light no longer 
 concentrate on the retina, but in front of it. Only 
 divergent rays can form distinct images of objects 
 on the retina. Distinct images of objects can be 
 obtained in two ways : by bringing objects near to 
 the eye, or by the use of concave spectacles, which 
 refract parallel rays divergently. 
 
 Myopy is a condition peculiar to civilized, life. 
 It is brought about by overtaxing the muscle of 
 accommodation, either by too long protracted read- 
 ing or writing, or by some work requiring long 
 con tinned sight for small objects, as in watch- 
 making. Once acquired, it is transmitted to chil- 
 dren ; both parents being myopic, the children are 
 quite apt to be myopic. 
 
 In Germany this trouble is frightful, Cohn having 
 found, in some of the higher classes in the gymna- 
 siums of Prussia, more than sixty per cent, of 
 myopes. Dr. Cohn examined ten thousand and 
 sixty scholars in the schools of Silesia, and found 
 myopy in all the schools. He found but few cases 
 in the village schools ; in the city schools he found : 
 
 In the Middle Departments, oue-tenth myopic. 
 
 In the High Schools, {Real Schulen,) one-fifth myopic. 
 
 In the Gymnasiums, one-fourth myopic. 
 
106 ^orlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 The increase from the lower to the higher classes 
 Dr. Cohn found to be constant, proving clearly that 
 it was developed by overtaxing the accommodative 
 power of the eye. Being warned by the example of 
 Oermany that too long protracted study in poorly 
 lighted school rooms leads to such disasters, it is to 
 be hoped that our young country will so act as to 
 escape such a fate, at least to a great extent. 
 
 Myopy is either stationary or progressive. 
 Myopia, if not arrested, gets to be of higher and 
 higher grade, until the posterior wall of the eye-ball 
 bulges out, the vascular coat atrophies, and distinct 
 vision is forever lost. Unfortunately, such cases are 
 not a great rarity ; such cases can, however, be saved 
 from a fatal result. When a child who can not see 
 the letters on the blackboard from his seat, nor see 
 across the room, is observed by the teacher, notice 
 should be taken of the case immediately. If the 
 child can readily read the finest print, or see any 
 near object distinctly, but is unable to see across 
 the room, then it is a case of myopy, and the child 
 should be turned over to a competent physician for 
 a course of treatment with atropin, or for the neces- 
 sary corrective spectacles ; delay is dangerous. In 
 the absence of medical aid, a teacher may order 
 spectacles; for instance, if the patient can only 
 
TeacJiers' Association. 107 
 
 see Snellen's type No. 2 fifteen inches, then No. 15 
 concave spectacles are ordered. Or if No. 1 type 
 can only be read at ten inches, then No. 10 concave 
 spectacles are ordered. So for any distance the far 
 point of distinct vision in inches gives us the num- 
 ber of the concave spectacle to be ordered. 
 
 B. Hypermetropy. — The hypermetropic eye is 
 a defect in the opposite direction from myopy. In 
 hypermetropy we have an imperfectly developed 
 eye, and the optic axis is too short, so that parallel 
 rays of light are not brought to a focus on the 
 retina, but on a point beyond the retina, and only 
 convergent rays can be concentrated on the retina, 
 and consequently convex spectacles are needed to 
 neutralize the defect. In high degrees of hyperme- 
 tropia, at the age of eight, ten or twelve years, 
 vision becomes painful, causing aching of the eyes, 
 brows and temples. This condition is called asthen- 
 apia, and it gets worse, until reading becomes so 
 painful that the child will have to be kept out of 
 school. In such a case, when a pair of spectacles 
 for an old person is put on the child, he will see 
 distant objects more clearly with strong convex 
 spectacles than without them ; such a case should 
 be turned over to a skillful oculist for adjustment of 
 spectacles. The rule is to select the weakest convex 
 
108 7(orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 spectacles that will enable the patient to see distant 
 objects distinctly. Such cases, when neglected, 
 often develop convergent squint ; very often, when 
 the effort to use the eyes without spectacles is kept 
 up too long, the eye suffers so much from straining 
 of the accommodation, and from irritability of the 
 retina and choroid, that the nutrition of the fundus 
 of the eye is disturbed to an extent so as to perma- 
 nently impair vision. 
 
 There is another form of refractive trouble that 
 concerns persons from thirty-six to fifty years of 
 age — ^I mean presbyopy. From childhood the near 
 point of vision recedes gradually, up to old age. 
 The lens becomes harder and more flattened, so that 
 on contraction of the voluntary fibres of the ciliary 
 muscle, the anterior surface of the lens no longer 
 bulges forward, to render possible distinct vision at 
 near distance. ' The affected person finds that his 
 book has to be held farther from the eyes to ren- 
 der reading possible. Reading at night begins to 
 become wearisome to the eyes, and after a time 
 the ciliary muscle will become irritable and pain- 
 ful from overwork, and the eyes, brows and temples 
 will ache. If reading is persisted in under such 
 circumstances, the eyes will become so irritable and 
 painful as to render reading impossible. All that 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 109 
 
 is needed is to have the presbyopy corrected by the 
 proper convex spectacles. Many persons have a 
 horror of growing old, and will defer the use of 
 spectacles much too long for their comfort and the 
 health of their eyes. There is a foolish saying, that 
 it is best to defer the use of spectacles as long as 
 possible, because if once used their use cannot be 
 dispensed with, and, I will add, should not be 
 dispensed with. Just as soon as a person can read 
 with more comfort to the eyes by the use of convex 
 glasses, the health of the eyes demands their use. 
 
 Bonders has estimated that as soon as the far 
 point of distinct vision recedes beyond eight inches, 
 the person is presbyopic and needs spectacles. For 
 example, we find a person who cannot read Snel- 
 len' s type No. 1 nearer than twelve inches, whereas 
 he ought to be able to read them at eight inches, 
 then it is clear that the person needs spectacles. 
 The formula is this : \, — -h^ ix'i then we order 
 + 24 spectacles for reading. Or again, No. 2 
 Snellen can only be read as near as fifteen inches, 
 then we calculate \ — tf = tt i-d and we order +1'7, 
 and so on for all degrees of presbyopy. 
 
110 'NorlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 ORAL INSTRUCTION VERSUS TEXT-BOOKS. 
 
 BY HBWRT M. JAMES, CLEVELAND. 
 
 The question of oral instraction and text-books, 
 involving, as it does, so much of method, and so 
 much that is fundamental in education, though an 
 old and much debated one, is one concerning which 
 the educational world are not well aigreed. It is still 
 a iit subject for discussion. As is usually the case, 
 high ground has been taken on both sides of this 
 question, and the schoolmasters have gone to the 
 farthest extremes. On the one hand, text-books 
 have been committed to memory and have been the 
 main reliance of teachers, even in the instruction of 
 the youngest children ; while others have proposed 
 to banish text-books entirely from the school room 
 and depend wholly on oral instruction. 
 
 The use of .text-books has, doubtless, in many 
 
 It- 
 
 casesf been abused. There are all about us children 
 who have been hindered in their educational course, 
 and have early acquired a strong aversion for school, 
 because they have been required to study books for 
 which they were not prepared, and memorize state- 
 ments which they did not understand ; and more 
 than one teacher has failed to gain a worthy place 
 
Teachers' :>lssocialion. Ill 
 
 in Ms profession because he has not known how to 
 use text-books judiciously. 
 
 I presume one of the greatest evils connected with 
 the use of text-books has come from putting them 
 into the hands of children too early. At a time 
 when they cannot read, they are often provided with 
 treatises on geography and arithmetic, and even 
 grammar, written in a style that they cannot under- 
 stand even when the books are read to them by 
 others. The child of eight or nine years who can 
 read the lessons of the Second Reader with great 
 difficulty, finds the statements that ' ' Geography is 
 a description of the surface of the earth;" that 
 "The equator is an imaginary line extending around 
 the earth at equal distances from the poles and 
 dividing it into hemispheres ;' ' that ' ' Cases, in gram- 
 mar, are modifications that distinguish the relations 
 of nouns and pronouns to other words ; ' ' and that 
 "Arithmetic is the science of numbers and the art 
 of numerical computation ; ' ' very difficult ones to 
 make out and very uninteresting after he is able to 
 pronounce the words. The result in almost every 
 case is that he dislikes his geography and arith- 
 metic — his books and school; and unless better 
 influences get hold of him, his career as a scholar 
 ends very early. I suppose a very large majority 
 
112 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 of the children in this country leave school from 
 choice and not from necessity, because having never 
 acquired any fondness for study, school work be- 
 comes to them the merest drudgery, and less attract- 
 ive than physical toil. Children have not a natural 
 aversion to learning, but on the contrary are eager to 
 use their eyes and ears ; and this unfortunate result 
 is due in almost every case to the errors of early 
 instruction. Of all the errors committed in edu- 
 cation, there are none that impress me as more 
 pernicious or tending more directly to this result, 
 than putting into the hands of children text-books 
 above their comprehension and beyond their years. 
 Another difficulty with text-book instruction, 
 much akin to the one already mentioned, consists 
 in allowing children to commit to memory defini- 
 tions and statements that they do not understand. 
 I apprehend that this is much more general than 
 many of us are aware. All along, from the earliest 
 steps till the average common school education is 
 finished, this evil exists to a greater or less degree. 
 I do not know but all teachers allow it to a certain 
 extent, and all pupils, even the most thoughtful, 
 suffer from it. Scientific thought runs very readily 
 into certain forms of expression, so complete and 
 appropriate that they become a sort of formula ; and 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 113 
 
 nothing is easier than to give a child these set forms 
 with an imperfect explanation of their meaning, and 
 be satisfied if he is able to reproduce our thoughts 
 in the beautiful and befitting language of the text- 
 book, even though that language be to him as devoid 
 of ideas as so many lines of a Greek tragedy. In 
 arithmetic, definitions and rules may be repeated 
 without any accompanying knowledge except of the 
 language of the statements, and the study of Eng- 
 lish grammar is full of this tendency. In our best 
 schools, large numbers of pupils may be found who 
 use the terms case, limit, go'oernment, co-ordinate, 
 and many others, who could not possibly tell you 
 what they mean except in the very excellent lan- 
 guage of their books. And the lack is not wholly 
 in facility of expression, but in a well defined idea 
 of the thing. The child with a good verbal memory 
 almost invariably makes a good scholar until within 
 a year or two of the high school, and perhaps even 
 then. Where is the teacher who has not discovered 
 this tendency over and over again with the recur- 
 rence of each day's lessons, and in almost every 
 branch taught in the schools, of pupils relying 
 mainly on their memory and reciting glibly the 
 words of their text-books without any conception 
 of their real meaning? 
 
114 Tforth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 Again, many teachers confine themselves to the 
 books too closely. Who that has visited schools to 
 any considerable extent, has not been pained to see 
 teachers, during the recitation, tediously searching 
 the pages of the text-book for questions to ask, with 
 their pupils, as might be expected, manifesting no 
 interest, whatever, in what was going on. The diffi- 
 culty of finding questions may be avoided, and often 
 is, by requiring the pupil to recite without ques- 
 tions, which exercise, though valuable as a means 
 of discipline, is nevertheless a poor one, if it alone 
 is used. The Superintendent of the Public Schools 
 of St. Louis has become so impressed with the 
 extent of this cramming process and this evil ten- 
 dency in the use of text-books, that he has recom- 
 mended to the Board of Education of that city the 
 ' ' adoption of a regulation prohibiting to the teacher 
 the use of the text-book in the recitation whenever 
 the pupil is expected to recite without the book." 
 A recitation ought to serve another purpose besides 
 testing the pupils' knowledge of the lesson. The 
 teacher ought to be so full of the matter to be 
 taught, so furnished with illustrations and interest- 
 ing and valuable facts connected with the subject in 
 hand, that with a free hand and a free eye he is able 
 to throw an amount of life and zeal into the pupil's 
 
Teachers' Association. 115 
 
 work that will inspire and strengthen him for future 
 effort. 
 
 And yet I apprehend that if the text-books are to 
 be arraigned on an indictment of having done great 
 damage to the cause of education, the evidence vfIU 
 show a large balance in their favor. Though there 
 are evils connected with text-book instruction, I 
 have no idea that the abolition of text- books woiild 
 banish all the evils from the world. Indeed we 
 should in this case pass the point of safety, and 
 go to a more dangerous extreme. A good text-book 
 is simply a presentation of a subject, with its order 
 of arrangement and its methods of elucidation — the 
 result of large experience and of the best thoughts- 
 of a clear and comprehensive mind, and teachers 
 must either use the books prepared by others or 
 assume the responsibility of making them for them- 
 selves. If only oral teaching is to be practiced, all 
 our teachers, the beginner as well as those of large 
 experience and observation, those of moderate abili- 
 ties as well as those of keen and comprehensive 
 intellect — all of the many thousands who take 
 charge of the school room, the rank and file of the 
 profession, must be expected to originate systems 
 and methods of instruction of their own. Now who 
 believes that even among the most capable teachers^ 
 
116 ?{orni-Easlern Ohio 
 
 there is one person competent to do this work so 
 as to make intelligent pupils, where scores can be 
 found who are able to present the plan of a good 
 author and secure satisfactory results? 
 
 The additional labor for the teacher, in case of 
 purely oral instruction, would be so great as to 
 constitute another serious objection to its adoption. 
 The work of teaching is hard enough at best. Com- 
 paratively few persons have sufficient strength to 
 enable them to endure the strain of the school 
 room many years, even when, by the aid of text- 
 books, much of the work is made light ; but remove 
 text-books entirely from the school room, and the 
 work of preparation of lessons would become very 
 much increased. The amount of additional talking 
 would be very exhausting, and the mere mechan- 
 ical labor of furnishing the pupils with outlines of 
 their lessons, by placing exercises on blackboard 
 to be copied, or by other means, would greatly 
 multiply the work of the teacher. Add to these 
 the continuous effort to secure attention and main- 
 tain discipline in school, which would hardly 
 become easier by releasing the children from their 
 books, and the labor of teaching would become 
 intolerable. 
 
 One of the most valuable things to be learned in 
 
Teachers' Association. 117 
 
 childhood is liow to study iooks. Teachers can be 
 at hand but a few years at the longest, but books 
 may be our companions and instructors all our 
 lives. The number of adults is not large who know 
 well how books are to be used — who understand 
 how to gather ideas from the printed page with 
 ease and readiness, and the teacher who can make 
 his pupils able to study books for themselves intelli- 
 gently and with pleasure, and has thus introduced 
 them to the great and good of all ages, has done 
 more for the cultivation of their minds and hearts 
 than if he had taught them the elements of many 
 sciences. If a system of purely oral instruction 
 shall be adopted, I do not see how this great 
 point could be gained. 
 
 With the bare mention of the objection that 
 purely oral instruction is in great danger of degen- 
 erating into a simple pouring-in process, so that 
 children so taught have frequently less independent 
 intellectual power than others, but are more depend- 
 ent on the teacher, let me add that knowledge 
 gained from oral instruction is generally vague, 
 indefinite and poorly arranged. "The memory of 
 the child cannot be expected to retain perfectly 
 all that is said by his teacher. Few persons who 
 listen to a sermon or a lecture can afterward give 
 
118 Morlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 more than a meagre outline of the thoughts pre- 
 sented. It is certainly unreasonable to expect that 
 a child shall keep distinctly and tenaciously in 
 mind anything more than the main points of the 
 oral lesson ; and as a matter of fact he will retain 
 permanently but few of these. To fix things safely 
 in the memory they must be studied carefully, 
 deliberately, repeatedly. The learning of them once 
 is by no means enough. Review after review is 
 absolutely necessary. Just here oral instruction is 
 seriously defective ; whereas good text-hooJcs, wisely 
 used, afford the requisite aid."* It is significant, 
 too, that in Oswego, where oral instruction has had 
 the widest range and been most thoroughly tested, 
 the results have been very unsatisfactory. The 
 principal of the Oswego High School has recently 
 stated that it has become necessary to modify the 
 conditions of admission to bring in those pupils 
 who are the results of oral instruction, and that the 
 standard of scholarship, and the general power of 
 the pupils in those schools, has steadily degenerated 
 since the abandonment of the old methods. So 
 great was the opposition that was aroused last 
 winter to Mr. Sheldon's system of instruction, even 
 among the friends of education, that from being the 
 
 * Mass. Teacher, June, 1869. 
 
Teachers' :^ssociaUon. 119 
 
 most radical educational centre in the country — the 
 very Mecca of the advocates of oral instruction — 
 there was great danger that Oswego would abandon 
 all she had gained, and swing clear to the other 
 extreme. * 
 
 If, then, there is one danger of using text-books 
 too much, and another of using them too little, the 
 question arises, how shall they be used, and what is 
 the proper relation of text-books to oral instruction % 
 Although this question is not easily answered in all 
 its details, a general solution of it is quite possible. 
 Here, as elsewhere, there is a golden mean, and that 
 will indicate for us the path of safety. 
 
 In the lower grades, with the exception of read- 
 ing, all the instruction should be oral. The usual 
 objections to oral instruction do not hold here, on 
 account of the nature of the studies pursued all 
 through the four years of the primary grade. Diffi- 
 cult principles, abstract definitions and tedious 
 explanations have no place in a primary course of 
 study. Language should be taught by exercises, 
 arithmetic by examples, common things by observa- 
 tion, and geography by maps and the blackboard. 
 Moreover, the ground to , be gone over in the 
 
 *The information upon whicti this statement is made is wiioily privatOi 
 but, as tlie writer supposes, entirely reliable. 
 
130 J^orth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 primary schools is so small tliat the extra work for 
 the teacher is not so immense, and frequent reviews 
 are practicable. 
 
 In the grades above the primary, when children 
 have learned to read, and have sufficient under- 
 standing of the meaning of words to use them 
 intelligently, let them begin the use of text-books. 
 It is, of course, a matter of great importance that we 
 have good text-books, with logical and consecutive 
 plan, simple and appropriate language, compact 
 and pointed in statement, free from all superfluous 
 matter, and in no respect above the comprehension 
 of the children by whom they are used. Just such 
 text-books as we need are priceless treasures. But 
 if we cannot have those that are perfect, let us take 
 the best ones and use them wisely and faithfully. 
 All through the grammar grades, I would have oral 
 and text-book instruction go hand in hand. The 
 oral should lead and the • text-book follow closely 
 behind. Before a definition is learned, let the teacher 
 by an oral lesson make plain the distinction which 
 the definition involves, and then let the definition be 
 memorized as thoroughly as any Puritan child ever 
 learned the Ten Commandments ; the process in 
 arithmetic first, and then the rule ; the idea of a 
 principle, and then the statement of the principle \ 
 
Teachers' slssocialion. 131 
 
 and always let rules and principles be committed to 
 memory, and while the process helps to understand 
 the rule, the language of the rule will assist in hold- 
 ing the process in the memory, and thus the two 
 will reciprocally help each other. Let us not under- 
 value the memory. It is one of the noblest faculties 
 of the mind, and should perform an important part 
 in the work of education ; and while the perceptive 
 faculties are quickened, and the language cultivated, 
 while eye and ear and hand are trained to perform 
 better their part, let the memory be strengthened by 
 constant and vigorous exercise. 
 
 Teachers are in danger of losing sight of the fact 
 that children have to learn Tiow to study a lesson ; 
 in what order a subject should be taken up ; what 
 things are more important and should be studied 
 with care, and what are to be passed over lightly ; 
 that the most compact history is not to be committed 
 to memory ; that learning every date is but little if 
 any better than learning no dates; — all this and 
 much more children do not at first understand, and 
 the teacherj by preliminary and oral instruction, 
 should make these matters clear. 
 
 The text-book should be the teacher' s guide ; 
 should be strong enough for him to lean upon with 
 confidence ; should be at hand for constant reference 
 
122 JYorih-Easiern Ohio 
 
 by the pupils, and should be the means of frequent 
 reviews. It seems to me there is no occasion for so 
 loud an outcry against the teacher's "asking the 
 questions at the bottom of the page." Those ques- 
 tions are sometimes the most pertinent, direct and 
 searching that could be framed, and may well be 
 employed; but for every question taken from the 
 book, let the teacher make two of his own, and let 
 him, with interesting facts and fitting illustrations, 
 try so to clothe the subject with interest that the 
 review of a lesson shall be full of delight. It is 
 doubtful whether, all things considered, this country 
 has produced an abler teacher than the venerable 
 Dr. Mark Hopkins, of WUliams College, and yet in 
 his Saturday morning lessons on the Old Assem- 
 bly's Catechism, in which he has particularly dis- 
 tinguished himself, he is never afraid to ask the 
 very questions and expect the same answers that we 
 find printed in that very old-fashioned educational 
 work ; but so richly furnished is he with illustra- 
 tions and other means of making his subject inter- 
 esting, that a want of interest in his classes is quite 
 unknown, and he never finds it necessary, in order 
 to secure attendance, to resort to calling the roll. 
 
 But, after all, it is the old, old way that prevails. 
 There is no royal road to learning. There is a law 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 123 
 
 of OTir nature as old as our race, that makes growth 
 the result of exercise. Mental power can never be 
 acquired except by mental activity, and well regu- 
 lated mental activity is sure to bring an increase of 
 power. The observation and experience of the wise 
 may give us many valuable suggestions and helps, 
 but the ancients, like ourselves and those who are yet 
 to come, acquired their wisdom and their strength 
 in accordance with this unvarying and universal 
 law. Happy is the effort of that author who gives 
 us a text-book, violating no principle of intellectual 
 growth : blessed is that teacher who is able to 
 so arouse and awaken in our youth those mental 
 activities, that from the powers within they will 
 attain their highest development. 
 
 TRAINING IN THE USE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 BT HARRIET L. KEELER, CLEVELAND. 
 
 In our language lessons we do not seek to go 
 back to that underlying principle of all language — 
 the giving of new experiences from whence new 
 ideas shall arise, to which new words give expres- 
 sion. We do not in the least attempt this. Such 
 
134 l^orlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 fundamental work, so far as it comes within tlie 
 province of the school, lies in the domain of the 
 object lesson ; and that it does lie there, we have the 
 authority ,of the highest example and the most 
 ancient practice ; for Adam' s first lesson in language 
 was an object lesson, and his Maker was his teacher. 
 
 Nor do we wish to be credited with the mistake 
 of supposing that, because we give a child new 
 words, we convey to him new ideas. Not at all. 
 Words in and of themselves never convey ideas. 
 The idea must first exist in the mind ere the word 
 can be vivified with meaning. A word can express 
 an idea, but it cannot create one. 
 
 Upon neither of these ideas, then, do we base 
 our language lessons, but rather upon this, which, 
 if admitted, is a most ample and sufficient founda- 
 tion; namely, that every child knows a great deal 
 more than he can express — that there lies in the 
 mind of every child a mass of vague impressions, 
 incomplete conceptions, half-formed ideas, born of 
 his emotions, of his sensuous pleasures, of his joys 
 and sorrows — that these lie very largely in the 
 realm of unconsciousness, from whence they may 
 be evoked by the application of the proper stimulus, 
 and become part of the child' s actual and available 
 knowledge. To provoke the impression of these 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 135 
 
 ideas, to clothe them with new words, to give a 
 choice between words which convey the same idea, 
 to show the child something of the harmony and 
 melgdy of language — in short, to lift him up from 
 the simple indication of his physical wants to the 
 expression of his higher nature — such are the aims 
 of our language lessons. 
 
 Such being our aims, what are our means ? Prin- 
 cipally three — pictures, stories, poems. We choose 
 pictures because of their suggestiveness. They sug- 
 gest so much to the child ; they lead him on from 
 one thing to another ; they touch his experience at 
 so many points that, if he gets well started and feels 
 free, he will exhaust his vocabulary in telling you 
 all about them. Our only pictures for this purpose 
 are those found in the school readers, which, of 
 course, are arranged with no such object in view, 
 and in no logical sequence ; yet they are excellent 
 for the purpose and render most efficient service. 
 However, a series of pictures might be arranged 
 which would shadow forth the child's past life, and 
 with which you might fathom the depths of his 
 consciousness. By the skillful use of pictures, we 
 may obtain from the child almost his entire vocabu- 
 lary, and, in addition, give him many new words. 
 
 Stories, however, offer the best opportunity to 
 
126 'NorlJi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 improve the child's language and culture. You 
 can do almost anything with children if you will 
 but tell them stories. You can refine their feel- 
 ings, touch their emotions, rouse their enthusiasm, 
 awaken their ambition, enkindle their devotion. 
 There is nothing in the broad sweep of noble living 
 or noble thinking that you cannot bring to their 
 consciousness by means of a story. As for informa- 
 tion, you can give all you wish. As for language, 
 the story is the very royal road to its acquisition. 
 Tell a group of children a story which has awakened 
 their interest and enchained their fancy, and then 
 ask for it back again, and notice how accurately it 
 will come. If you have used new words and expres- 
 sions, having made their meaning clear, they will 
 come back also, in your very words and with the 
 very tricks of your voice. 
 
 In order to make this exercise a successful one, 
 reproduction, both oral and written, must be insisted 
 upon. With small children this must, of course, be 
 entirely oral ; with larger children it should be both 
 oral and written, never, however, permitting the 
 written to displace the oral. It is, indeed, desira- 
 ble to write well ; it is equally desirable to talk 
 well. Much also can be done at this point to 
 obtain distinct articulation, full utterance, and to 
 
Teachers' :>lssociation. 137 
 
 cultivate a respectful and self-respecting attitude 
 when speaking. 
 
 Pictures and stories will accomplisli much ; but, 
 to show a child the melody and harmony of lan- 
 guage, we must use poems. Some of these should 
 be such as can be taught him ; others such as he 
 can understand when read. It may be urged that 
 children can not appreciate poetry ; but any child 
 who has sat in the sunshine, and heard the birds 
 sing, and felt the wind blow, and gained pleasure 
 thereby, has within him the germs of poetic feeling. 
 And as in the child ages of the world the first litera- 
 ture of all nations was ballads, so the child finds in 
 the ballad his first delight. 
 
 There seems no reason why these lessons might 
 not be carried up through the higher grades, broad- 
 ening and deepening until the simple story expands 
 into an article ; the few new expressions into a choice 
 essay ; the simple dialogue into the drama ; the 
 ballad into the complete poem. Let reproduction, 
 both oral and written, follow every step ; and then, 
 when the pupils reach the higher grammar grades, 
 they will not only be able to parse and analyze and 
 perform examples in arithmetic, but they will be 
 able to recognize their mother-tongue when they 
 see it. And the luckless teacher of the high school 
 
138 J\forlh-Eastern OMo 
 
 will not be compelled to explain Dickens, point out 
 the quaint humor of Irving, or the beauties of Long- 
 fellow, and wage an unecLual war with dime novels 
 and "yellow-covered literatnre," but the pupils will 
 already have gained power to select and appreciate. 
 
 These results can be obtained, but only upon one 
 condition, and that is, that you proclaim a divorce 
 between language and technical grammar. If you 
 do not, if you attempt to teach them together, and 
 then come in with your monthly examinations in 
 grammar, your results in language will amount to 
 nothing. The language will be merged in the gram- 
 mar very much as Jonah was merged in the whale, 
 with by no means the same chance of getting out 
 that he had. A knowledge, however accurate, of 
 technical grammar will never give the power to 
 wield the English language with strength and 
 precision. This comes only through example 
 and practice — -and where shall the great mass of 
 children acquire it if not in school? 
 
 How successful this plan may be in the higher 
 grades, we cannot tell ; but how remarkable its suc- 
 cess is in the lower, we know, for it has been tested. 
 
Teachers' Association. 139 
 
 OBJECT TEACHING. 
 
 BY SAMUEL PINDLEY, AKRON. 
 
 Pestalozzi has said, that in all revolutions people 
 always begin by rejecting good and bad together. 
 This is true in regard to what men accept as well as 
 what they reject. Want of discrimination charac- 
 terizes the great mass of the human family. Our 
 profession affords few marked exceptions to the 
 rule. In attempting to root out the tares from 
 our systems of instruction, we root out with them 
 much of the good wheat. In attempting to propa- 
 gate new and good seed, we oftentimes sow tares. 
 We have this for our warning and encouragement, 
 that, in the end, the tares shall be burned, but the 
 wheat shall be gathered into the barn. Just how 
 much of the modern educator's work will remain 
 when the fire has done its work, cannot now be 
 determined. In addition to the injurious tares 
 which the fire will burn, there is, doubtless, also, 
 much worthless chaff which the wind shall carry 
 away. To be able to choose the good and reject 
 the injurious and worthless in education, requires 
 the highest intelligence and the purest purpose 
 which humanity can attain. 
 
130 mrlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 If the experience of each teacher present were 
 written, in how many cases would the record cor- 
 respond with that of Pestalozzi, when he said: 
 "Popular education lay before me like an immense 
 marsh, in the mire of which I waded about, striv- 
 ing to discover the sources from which its waters 
 spring, and the causes by which their free course 
 is obstructed." And how often, as we flounder in 
 this marsh, do we shout "Eureka" at sight of the 
 deceptive Tnirage about us. 
 
 These thoughts were suggested to my mind while 
 reflecting on the much worn subject of object teach- 
 ing. This is a pedagogical term, which though 
 much used is not well defined. It is used by dif- 
 ferent persons to apply to very different things. In 
 its common acceptation it is applied to disjointed 
 talks in schools about pieces of wood, stone, iron, 
 glass, sponge, etc., in which are brought to light 
 the remarkable facts that wood is light and stone 
 is heavy; that iron is tough and glass is brittle; 
 that air is good to breathe and water to drink ; that 
 sugar is sweet and vinegar is sour, etc. Such exer- 
 cises are not without value when directed to their 
 proper end ; but aside from their use in lower grades 
 of schools as lessons in language, they seem to me 
 more appropriate for the nursery than the school". 
 
Teachers' Association. 131 
 
 Many teachers seem to ignore the fact that the child, 
 previous to its admission to school, has already re- 
 ceived six years of tuition, which, if less systematic 
 and formal, is more natural, and produces a better 
 growth than the tuition of the school. I believe 
 teachers are often engaged in laborious efforts to do 
 for young minds what unaided nature has already 
 far better done. The acquisitions of a child of even 
 four years are truly wonderful. Its faculties, espe- 
 cially those concerned in observation, have been 
 actively and pleasurably employed. The power 
 of imagination has already gained considerable 
 strength. The use of language has been acquired 
 with an ease and rapidity not equaled in any sub- 
 sequent four years of the child's life. There has 
 been no senseless word-cramming, but words have 
 been learned when needed to express ideas previ- 
 ously acquired. In short, the mind has not only 
 germinated, it has pushed out its branches in almost 
 every direction, before the teacher is called to the 
 task of its cultivation. True object teaching con- 
 tinues the work which nature has so well begun. 
 
 I do not understand that object teaching is syn- 
 onymous with object lessons or lessons on common 
 things. It is a much more comprehensive term, 
 being as extensive in its scope as education itself. 
 
133 J\forih-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 It is used to express the opposite of the old sense- 
 less word-cramming, which has prevailed and still 
 prevails in many schools. It is used, for want 
 of a better term in our language, as expressive 
 of the natural or rational method of teaching. 
 The fundamental principles on which it is based 
 have their foundation in the nature of the human 
 mind. A few of these principles may be briefly 
 enumerated. 
 
 I. Mind is developed by thinking. Whatever 
 determines the mind to self-activity promotes its 
 growth. Sir William Hamilton says: "The pri- 
 mary principle of education is the determination 
 of the pupil to self-activity." This principle is 
 not kept sufficiently in mind. We are apt to do 
 too much for our pupils; or, at least we do not 
 require them to do enough for themselves. It is 
 to be feared that too much of our modern teaching 
 has an efi"ect similar to that of reading novels and 
 romances. It exhilarates without strengthening. 
 It does not tend to produce intellectual robust- 
 ness. Those are not the best books which think 
 for us, but those which make us think. They are 
 not the best teachers who think for their pupils, 
 but they who make their pupils think. 
 
 II. Nature furnishes the primary objects of 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaiion. 133 
 
 thought. The sights and sounds which every- 
 where meet the eye and ear of the little child, 
 are its first and best teachers. To fill the minds 
 of young children with unmeaning words is not 
 education. Words are but symbols of ideas, and 
 are useless until the mind is put in possession 
 of the ideas they represent. Language is not the 
 producer, but the vehicle of thought. 
 
 III. The senses are the gateways of the soul. 
 All the elements of our knowledge are acquired, 
 in the first instance, through the organs of sense. 
 This is true even of our consciousness, for it is 
 only by knowing other things that the mind 
 knows itself. Just what relation our intuitions 
 bear to our sense-knowledge, it is unnecessary 
 here to determine. That they are traceable to some 
 previous exercise of sense as the occasion and con- 
 dition of their development, is generally admitted. 
 
 IV. There is a natural order of mental develop- 
 ment. It is not to be assumed that the growth of 
 mind proceeds by such clearly defined stages, that 
 we can mark the end of one process of develop- 
 ment and the beginning of another: It would be 
 hard to say at what age a child commences the 
 exercise of imagination and reason. This, how- 
 ever, all must admit, that sense-perception is the 
 
134 J\forth-Easlern Ohio 
 
 natural exercise of young minds, and that this 
 exercise must precede the exercise of every other 
 power of the mind. There is not an intellectual 
 faculty whose activity would be possible without 
 sense-perceptions, and the value of whose products 
 are not directly dependent on the accuracy and 
 completeness of fundamental perceptions. 
 
 V. How is more important than what in educa- 
 tion. It is of less consequence, with reasonable 
 limitations, what branches of knowledge occupy 
 the mind, than what habits of attention and thought, 
 are formed in their acquisition. The power of clear 
 perception and nice discrimination may be culti- 
 vated in teaching drawing or vocal music, no less 
 than in formal object lessons; and careless and 
 incorrect habits of observation, and slovenliness of 
 thought, may be begotten by lessons on common 
 objects as readily as by any other lessons taught 
 in school. All depends upon how these exercises 
 are conducted. 
 
 The grand aim of object teaching, then, is the 
 development of human powers by natural means 
 and method, and in natural order. This includes 
 mainly three things: the training of the mental 
 faculties by self-activity, the imparting of informa- 
 tion, and the cultivation of language. The first is 
 
Teachers' :>lssociation. 135 
 
 the ultimate and principal aim; the other two are 
 subsidiary to it, though each has great value per 
 se. Some one has said that that which, more than 
 any thing else, marks indelibly and manifestly the 
 well- disciplined mind, is the power of forming clear 
 ideas and giving them precise and elegant expres- 
 sion. To be able to form clear ideas requires the 
 training of the senses to receive and convey impres- 
 sions promptly and accurately. Good eyes and ears 
 are essential. Then the mind must be trained to 
 convert these impressions into correct and full per- 
 ceptions. This is fundamental in education. If we 
 fail to give our pupils the power of forming clear 
 perceptions, we can give them little else that is 
 valuable. Oral and written descriptions of per- 
 sons, places, pictures and other objects are valuable 
 means of discipline in this direction. Questions, 
 problems and directions given by the teaicher should 
 as a rule be stated but once, that pupils may form 
 the habit of close attention and quick perception. 
 
 The next step in the process of mental develop- 
 ment is so to train the memory and imagination as 
 to secure the power of accurate and vivid con- 
 ception. The objection is sometimes made that 
 objective teaching tends to beget a materialistic 
 cast of mind, unfavorable to the forming of vivid 
 
136 North-Easlern Ohio 
 
 mental images of the unseen. I think there may 
 be force in this objection, as applied to much that 
 passes under the name of object teaching. The 
 activity of the mind may be limited to mere sense- 
 perception to such an extent as to leave undeveloped 
 the power of forming vivid concepts. I think, how- 
 ever, the danger in this direction is not great ; there 
 is far greater danger that the mind will lack in the 
 power of full and accurate conception through 
 defective perceptiveness. The clearness, accuracy 
 and durability of memory are directly dependent 
 on the vividness and accuracy of the original per- 
 ception ; and imagination, which we are wont to 
 call the creative faculty, is likewise dependent for 
 its activity upon the acuteness of previous observa- 
 tion. What we call the creations of the imagination 
 are but the "replacing of former sensations and 
 perceptions, not in combination and order, accord- 
 ing to the original and actual, but rather according 
 to the mind's own ideal, and at its own will and 
 fancy." The foundation, then, of clear conception 
 is keen perceptiveness. This secured, the rest is 
 comparatively easy. 
 
 The power of the mind to make careful compari- 
 son and complete generalization is one of the most 
 important. This, too, is only attained through 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 137 
 
 careful observation of individual facts. And so I 
 might go on to show that reason and practical judg- 
 ment depend largely upon correct, discriminating 
 observation. The disciplined use of the senses, 
 then, in acquiring clear perceptions, is essential to 
 any effective exercise of any or all the other intel- 
 lectual faculties. Now this does not prove, to my 
 mind, that all that is disciplinary in a common school 
 course of instruction should be directed to the 
 development of the perceptive faculties. It does 
 indicate, however, that this is the starting point. 
 Primary instruction should deal largely with sensi- 
 ble objects, and with concrete knowledge, rather 
 than with the symbols of knowledge, or with 
 abstract principles. It indicates, furthermore, that 
 the study of a new subject in any grade of school, 
 should commence with the observation of its ele- 
 mentary facts, rather than with the memorizing of 
 definitions or statements of abstract principles. 
 
 The second aim of object teaching — to impart 
 information — need not be dwelt upon. It comes 
 in as an important and necessary element in the 
 process of training the faculties ; and while, as 
 already stated, how is more important than what, 
 the two rarely, if ever, conflict. The best informa- 
 tion, imparted in the best way, constitutes the best 
 discipline of the faculties. 
 
138 mrih-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 The third aim, namely, the cultivation of the 
 power of expression, deserves some attention — in 
 fact, more attention than can be given it in this 
 brief paper. This, too, is closely related to that 
 which is disciplinary in education. The power of 
 forming clear ideas, and of giving them exact 
 expression, are mutually dependent. No one, all 
 will admit, can give precise expression to thoughts 
 not sharply defined in his own mind. That no one 
 is able to form clear ideas without being able to 
 give them expression, is nearer the truth than we 
 are accustomed to think. I have said that language 
 is the vehicle of thought. It is more ; it is the very 
 instrument of thought. Our thoughts are spirits 
 embodied in language. We can form but very im- 
 perfect conceptions of disembodied spirits; though 
 with lifeless bodies we may be quite familiar. 
 
 The child acquires the use of his mother tongue 
 at first by the mere impulse of nature, which causes 
 him to practice, unconsciously but persistently, the 
 association of ideas with their sound symbols. The 
 true object teacher, taking the suggestion from na- 
 ture, pursues a similar course in imparting the 
 knowledge and use of written language. Familiar 
 ideas and their well-known sound symbols are 
 associated with their corresponding form symbols, 
 until each readily suggests either of the others. 
 
Teachers' Association. ] 39 
 
 Thus language ultimately becomes the great instru- 
 ment of human culture. As the mind acquires 
 facility in translating the language of nature into 
 spoken and written language, and the reverse, the 
 text-book may properly claim more of the pupil's 
 attention. The pupil should commence the use of 
 the text-book as soon as he can, under the guidance 
 of the teacher, make an intelligent use of it, and 
 no sooner. Text-book instruction should proceed 
 in strict accordance with the principles of object 
 teaching. It should first of all lead the pupil to 
 careful observation and clear perception of the ele- 
 mentary facts of the subject; and in so far as the 
 text-book fails to do this for the pupil, or, in so far 
 as the pupil is unable to make this use of the text- 
 book, the instruction of the living teacher should 
 precede, accompany and supplement the instruction 
 of the text-book. 
 
 I have said that language becomes the great 
 instrument of human culture. This suggests that 
 the cultivation of the power of expression is a very 
 important part of the teacher's work. Every read- 
 ing lesson should be made a language study ; and 
 a prominent object of every recitation should be 
 to cultivate accuracy and facility in the use of 
 language. 
 
140 J\forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 Concerning formal lessons on common objects, I 
 have said that they are not without value. When 
 wisely conducted, they furnish good discipline for 
 young minds. They give variety and interest to 
 school exercises, and furnish means for the cultiva- 
 tion of language; but they do not seem to me to 
 constitute the summum honum of school training. 
 The conviction is strong in my mind that they 
 should be considered auxiliary and subordinate, 
 rather than leading instruments of human culture. 
 What we most need is the intelligent application of 
 the object method to the ordinary branches of school 
 instruction. 
 
 And we must learn to labor and to wait. The 
 pressure upon the teacher to produce immediate 
 and visible results is very great. We owe it to our 
 profession, as well as to our pupils, to resist this 
 pressure. The most valuable acquisitions are the 
 most difficult. The most valuable growth in the 
 spiritual as well as the material world is a slow 
 growth. We can secure for our pupils the best 
 culture of mind and heart only by long-continued 
 painstaking. 
 
Teachers' :>lssocialion. 141 
 
 THE TEACHER IN GROOVES. 
 
 MISS P. H. GOODWIN, AKRON. 
 
 The mightiest forces of nature are invisible. 
 Steam, that has robbed earthly distance of its 
 fetters and made the strength of man weak as a 
 pigmy's boast, presents no outline to the senses — 
 the breath of vapor tells us only it is gone. The 
 harnessed lightning, that has made our time a minus 
 quantity, in its flight transports our thoughts, but 
 leaves no photograph of self upon its course. The 
 wind, that "bloweth where it listeth"; the life- 
 principle that fashions with dextrous skill the form 
 of animal and plant ; the force that keeps the worlds 
 from jarring — these all are locked in secrecy. Grod, 
 the Omnipotent Creator and Controller, is unseen, 
 and every human life that is a power in the world is 
 but the outgrowth of hidden forces — ^^the embodi- 
 ment of the ideal. There is an inner laboratory 
 where thought evolves the forces that make living 
 men, and in this ideal realm the spirit grasps its 
 high ambitions, its heavenly inspirations, its pur- 
 poses for good or evil; and if that inner horizon 
 reaches no farther than the outer one of sense, the 
 
142 7{orth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 sordid "eat and drink, for to-morrow we die"; or 
 if the ideal images worship only at the shrine of 
 self, such life is dead, or, like the misdirected light- 
 ning' s stroke, leaves in its way the shattered wrecks 
 of what before was beautiful. 
 
 Then, is it too much to say that whatever hinders 
 the spirit in its upward flight, whatever would throw 
 from its pedestal the lofty ideal that nerves the soul 
 to action, is doing more than physical injury ; what- 
 ever shuts out the beauty, the light, the purity 
 which the eye hath not seen, shuts out from the 
 discerning spirit its most ennobling influences. 
 
 Such is the tendency of certain statements cur- 
 rent concerning the teacher s profession ; statements 
 appearing in our leading periodicals; statements 
 coming from the pen or lips of teachers claiming 
 long experience ; statements made outside the teach- 
 ers' ranks, which certainly seem to find abundant 
 proofs in things of ease and sense, yet which are 
 like the worm-eaten plank in the keel of a ship, or 
 like the quicksands under the builder's founda- 
 tions — undermining in their influences. 
 
 I copy the following, which appeared in print as 
 the conclusions drawn from fifteen years' experience : 
 
 "The teacher's profession, to one of high intel- 
 lectual aim, is intensely narrow and enfeebling in its 
 
Teachers' Association. 143 
 
 tendency ; that it shoves the teacher from the busy 
 currents of men and manly interests." Also, "the 
 average teacher has about three times as much low 
 work as high work to do ; infinitely more belittling, 
 sickening and heart-breaking contests with malice, 
 stupidity or meanness, than real teaching. Neither 
 has the teacher the same incitements as in other 
 professions, in the feeling of increasing mental 
 power and grasp." And again the writer speaks of 
 the morally belittling effects of the profession. 
 
 This testimony would scarcely deserve notice 
 were it an isolated instance. But quite frequently, 
 even in my short experience, have I heard expres- 
 sions from teachers betraying similar sentiments. 
 Who is not familiar with the expressions, "If I 
 teach much longer I shall fossilize;" "Oh, this 
 wearisome, everlasting routine." Only a few days 
 since I heard a gentleman, very much interested 
 in the cause of education, yet not a teacher, state 
 that the greatest objections in his mind to being 
 a teacher were the narrowness of the field, the small 
 inducement financially, the being thrust out from 
 the busy avenues of men. Indeed, so numerous 
 are these suggestions, it behooves us to inquire, 
 are these things so? Is the teacher's profession a 
 groove, or series of grooves, narrow, enfeebling? 
 
144 J\forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 Must the teacher walk most of the way through a 
 tunnel that shuts out the ennobling scenery of the 
 heavens because of the "three times as much low 
 work as high work"? Do the ditches sink so deep, 
 the embankments rise so high, that men and manly 
 interests are thrust out? If these are truths, then 
 many a fair ideal must lie prostrate in the dust, 
 many a stout arm must fall nerveless, many brave 
 hearts faint from weariness, for we as teachers are 
 degraded. I raise my protest against . these state- 
 ments, and yet believe, with Herbert Spencer, that 
 "there is a soul of truth in things erroneous." 
 There must be some excuse for such opinions. 
 
 No doubt that there are many in this field of 
 labor who have furrowed for themselves grooves of 
 enfeebling narrowness, or tunneled for their feet a 
 way of darkness. It will be generally conceded 
 that the majority of lady teachers have chosen this 
 profession because their circumstq,nces in life made 
 it necessary to seek some means of self-support, 
 and since the avenues of labor are so few for women, 
 they choose the teacher' s profession as best adapted 
 to their taste and acquirements. Let us grant that 
 thus far there is nothing wrong in the motives of 
 this choice. Man holds not all the reins that guide 
 the car of destiny. Necessities come, and when the 
 
Teachers' t/lssocialion. 145 
 
 adequate means of relief come also, the choice is 
 easily made. But, if with the teacher's decision, 
 there comes no higher inspiration, no grasping of 
 the greatness of the undertaking, there is a wrong, 
 and in the end most fearful failure. And it is 
 because many gentlemen as well as ladies enter this 
 profession with a biased choice, or as a stepping- 
 stone (to some other occupation, with no just appre- 
 ciation of its possibilities, and because the tendency 
 of the human heart is to become engrossed in the 
 things of sense — forgetting that an unseen book is 
 being written — that some, after a time, become nar- 
 rowed, enfeebled, fossilized, prematurely old, per- 
 haps embittered ; and, because they continue to draw 
 their monthly salary, regard themselves as fair 
 exponents of their profession, and complain of the 
 small incitements to effort and the cramping rugged- 
 ness of the way. It is they who have dishonored 
 their calling, and who are the greatest incumbrances 
 in placing before the eyes of men the true dignity of 
 the teacher's profession. Complaint is justly made 
 of the small financial recompense. Improvement 
 has been made of late years, but it has been brought 
 about by the earnest men and women who have 
 clamored least for pay ; who, throwing their whole 
 energies into their labor, have endeavored to work 
 
 10 
 
146 T^orth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 out the high ideals of their undertaking; and, in 
 just such proportion as the latter workers take the 
 places of the former, there will be a more liberal 
 recompense. Some one may think of the diflference 
 between the pay of the gentleman and lady teacher, 
 but that is a question which pertains to the labor 
 of women, not to this discussion. Earnest, efficient 
 labor will, in time, remove even this prejudice. 
 
 Again, boards of education are not yet infallible 
 in their judgments, and by their enactments they 
 may unwisely cramp the earnest teacher ; too many 
 hours in the school room, overcrowded classes, etc., 
 may hinder the desired success. These are some of 
 the occasions which may give rise to the objec- 
 tionable statements given above, but these may be 
 regarded as adventitious offshoots from the sturdy 
 trunk of the school system, hiding the symmetry 
 of its proportions, but which are the results of 
 wounds or mutilations, and not inherent in its 
 growth. We claim for the teacher's profession 
 length, breadth, room for expansion to satisfy 
 the most aspiring soul. 
 
 First. Because the field of labor will use to 
 advantage the highest intellectual development of 
 which a human being is capable. We do not assert 
 that all excellence can be attained in this profession. 
 
Teachers' Mssociaiion. 147 
 
 It is simply one of many vocations, and few can 
 excel in more than one. If the aim of one man is 
 to gain a golden fortune, let him seek those avenues 
 of business that lead to Wall Street power, but let 
 him not say another profession is a groove because 
 it does not lead to gold. Gold, in the world's his- 
 tory, has never been the measure of intellectual or 
 moral greatness. If the poet's fire flashes through 
 his soul and his ambition seeks the laurel crown, 
 let .him seek the paths of literature, but be more 
 humble than to say that mental power has no other 
 . wreath to claim. If forms of beauty waken in his 
 soul and clamor for their freedom, let him make the 
 marble speak, but let him not forget that there are 
 other artists that may carve out fair ideals. But 
 suppose a single intellect possessed of all the gifts 
 of a ready writer to express in words his beautiful 
 creations, and the ability of the sculptor to fashion 
 in form the same ; suppose him possessed of all the 
 knowledge that philosophers have gained of the men- 
 tal faculties, all 4;he facts that scientists have searched 
 out, the proudest warrior's ability to command, and 
 place him where he may direct and culture the fresh 
 young life of the generation, then ask if there is one 
 department of this vast knowledge that remained 
 unopened because of no demand. The thoughtful 
 
148 l^orlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 mind must answer, No ! He deals with minds that, 
 taken together, have all the capabilities of his own 
 vast development. In view, then, of the preparation 
 that could be utilized, the groove of the teacher is 
 bounded on all sides by the distant wall of the 
 infinite. 
 
 Secondly. It is not narrow, because of its demand 
 upon the original thought and invention of the 
 teacher. J. Gr. Holland writes : 
 
 Artists are few, 
 Teachers are many, and the world is large. 
 Artists are nearest God. Into their souls 
 He breathes his life, and from their hand it comes 
 In fair articulate forms to bless the world; 
 And yet these forms may never bless the world 
 Except its teachers take them in their hands 
 And give each man his portion. 
 
 We agree that the teacher' s work is primarily to 
 instruct, a continual giving that never impoverishes ; 
 but we claim for him also the higher power of the 
 artist, and that, too, in every department of school 
 work. Take the lowest grade, where the objection 
 of narrowness would seem to have most force. Look, 
 teacher or theorizer, into those trusting, up-turned 
 faces, with expressions as varied as the flashings of 
 rainbow-tinted light upon the waters, and ask, who 
 can comprehend a child' s mind or know the secrets 
 
Teachers' Associaiion. 149 
 
 of its first unfolding % When have perfect methods 
 been obtained for teaching the rudiments of lan- 
 guage, or arithmetic, or geography, or reading? 
 What are the facts ? We find to-day the best talent 
 in the teachers' ranks giving their attention to ele- 
 mentary instruction, and the "end is not yet." 
 Every strong bound forward but reveals incentives 
 to a yet more daring leap. Here are problems for 
 solution, heights to which the ambitious may 
 advance, solid granite upon which to carve a name ; 
 nay, the figure is imperfect ; granite in future ages 
 will crumble into dust, but he who lifts mankind 
 into a nobler life, writes upon tablets more enduring 
 than the rock. 
 
 It is true there is the unavoidable routine of 
 machinery, but with it there is a never ceasing 
 call for invention, for close analysis, and for lucid 
 explanation, for quick judgment and quick decis- 
 ion ; there must be attention to detail, but even this 
 has discipline, from which the ambitious need not 
 shrink. 
 
 Look at the philosopher's life. What unswerv- 
 ing attention to the minutest mental changes ; what 
 years of patient induction; what hours of careful 
 analysis ! 
 
 Look at the unceasing attention to petty detail 
 
150 Norlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 in the life of the astronomer, or that of the success- 
 ful man of business. Trace back the history of 
 the discovery of most of our scientific facts, and 
 especially their utilization in the arts, and you will 
 find the various pathways strewn with wearisome 
 hours of hope deferred, disappointment, apparent 
 failure, routine detail, and all this in th6 cause of 
 science and " the life that now is." Yet who can say 
 such lives were narrowed to a groove ? What mean 
 attention to elementary sounds, accurate pronun- 
 ciation, rapid calculation in arithmetic, and reading 
 guided by the understanding? O! teachers, sur- 
 rounded by the things of sense, we plume our 
 pinions for too low a flight, we rise not into the 
 upper atmosphere to view the labor of our daily 
 life. We are honored by our calling. It is mould- 
 ing in the wax of immortality, teaching the germs 
 of character that die not ; it is the formation of the 
 habits of thoughts, stronger in after life than the 
 powers of the will ; it is the sowing of seeds of dis- 
 cipline, and who may estimate the reaping? 
 
 Does some one mentally comment : 0, yes, that 
 may do for sentiment. It all looks very well upon 
 paper. But when one has spent year after year in 
 the round of reading, writing and arithmetic ; when 
 "only a teacher" seems to be the one reputation 
 
Teachers' Association. 151 
 
 gained; when one tealizes that the brown- stone 
 mansions are not for his entertainment, and the 
 elite ignore his existence; when the young minds 
 so carefully instructed grow to manhood and wo- 
 manhood, and pass as strangers, one is not very 
 apt to be comforted by thinking of the spiritual 
 tablets on which he has been writing, or the fashion- 
 ing of immortal minds that forget so soon their bene- 
 factors. Well, my fellow-teachers, if I could have 
 a quiet little talk with you when there were not so 
 many present, I would say, if to speak the "open 
 sesame" to the brown-stone fronts were the goal 
 of your ambition, you had, indeed, missed your 
 calling, and that was your present misfortune. I 
 would ask you if, notwithstanding, you were not 
 sure that you had the unlimited confidence and re- 
 spect of the most cultured and worthiestfand noblest 
 part of the conjmunity in which you have taught so 
 long ; also, while some pupils might be unappreci- 
 ative, if you could not number many who would 
 treasure your name with love and reverence even 
 through the dark valley? If you should answer 
 both questions in the negative, I would say you had 
 surely missed your calling, and that you might 
 consider your teacher's life as a failure. If you 
 answered aflSrmatively, and yet saw in these facts 
 
152 Morth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 no comfort, I would reply, be sure your feet are in 
 a groove ; you are shutting from your soul the 
 power of the invisible ; you are placing in the dust 
 of earthly homage the ideal that should glorify the 
 routine of your daily life. Either stop teaching or 
 think — -until to be "only a teacher" seems worthy 
 the devotion of your life ; then, whether you teach 
 one year or many, I believe in the eternal balancing 
 you will be credited with all you strive to accom- 
 plish, though you may have failed to place the 
 fair articulate forms before the world. 
 
 Thirdly. The teacher's vocation is not a narrow 
 one, because of its influence upon civilization and 
 the political welfare of the world. I regret my time 
 will permit me to linger here but a moment. . It can 
 no longer be said that the destinies of thrones or 
 empires lie at the bayonet's point or despot's bid- 
 ding. The only guaranty of success rests upon 
 education. Schools are now the strife among the 
 nations, and the intelligent ballot is the guardian 
 of liberty. 
 
 From an unknown author I copy the following : 
 
 In Prussia the Minister of Public Education 
 has ever stood on an equality with her Minister of 
 War. Her common schools have created her su- 
 premacy in Grermany, and our example has taught 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 153 
 
 mankind that knowledge should be free as the air 
 we breathe or the light of heaven. 
 
 "Thrust out from manly interests," indeed? 
 rather is he thrust into their very midst, and 
 around him centre the dearest liberties of man- 
 kind — the success of the present — the promise for 
 the future. 
 
 Lastly. In its moral effect upon teacher and 
 pupil the teacher' s profession is not a groove. We 
 deny the "three times as much low work as high 
 work." There may be stubbornness, and stupidity , 
 and malice to contend with, but unless the teacher 
 allows these evil spirits to enter his heart, they can 
 never belittle nor degrade it. There may be hours 
 of sorrow, hours of earnest supplication for strength 
 above the human, but sorrow is elevating since it is 
 the offspring of unselfish love. There may be sleep- 
 less nights and prayers for wisdom, but every throe 
 of anguish is the lifting to a higher life, the chiseling 
 of fairer lineaments upon the soul. The purest life 
 the world has ever seen was one long contest with 
 ignorance and bitterest malice. I recall an incident 
 told me by a lady concerning her experience when 
 teaching in one of the grammar schools of Chicago. 
 One term a boy entered her school who soon revealed 
 
154 'Norlh-EasUrn OMo 
 
 himself to be persistently unruly and wilfully demor- 
 alizing in his influence. Patiently, earnestly, deter- 
 minedly she studied to control him and lead him 
 to conquer himself, but with no apparent success. 
 Every gentler device having failed to make a lasting 
 impression on his mind, but on the contrary, seem- 
 ing to arouse to greater endeavor the demon of his 
 nature, the rod was tried, but unavailingly. One 
 day when the disobedient spirit had broken out 
 afresh, the teacher felt the last resort was reached, 
 namely, expulsion, and the boy must go forth to 
 his inevitably downward career. A new suggestion 
 entered her mind. With no time for consideration, 
 she proceeded to action. The boy was summoned 
 to the platform. Taking the ferrule from the desk, 
 the teacher addressed him, as nearly as I can recall, 
 as follows: "John, you have done wrong again, 
 and for every wrong some one must suffer. It is 
 always so before any one can be forgiven. You 
 have disobeyed many times and I have had to make 
 you suffer; and still you forget your own word and 
 do wrong again and again. This time I will bear 
 the pain and you may strike." She handed him 
 the ferrule, which the boy took, with an ugly scowl, 
 while the scholars seemed breathless in their silence. 
 He struck the hand firmly extended, a blow, with all 
 
Teachers' Association. 155 
 
 his might. It was a cruel blow, making every nerve 
 in her body quiver in pain, but the greatest pain 
 was at her heart, for the boy was not conquered. 
 She paused only a moment. Sobs were heard from 
 all parts of the room. ' ' John, that was a hard blow ; 
 it has caused a great deal of pain, but it is not 
 enough to cancel your wrong ; strike again." The 
 boy partly raised his arm, but it sank at his side ; 
 his head was averted, and the first tear she had ever 
 seen from his eyes coursed down his cheeks. The 
 evil spirit was subdued. The boy' s whole demeanor 
 in school was changed, and he afterward proved him- 
 self a friend. This is a single instance — a contest 
 with extreme stubbornness and malice. Yet who 
 can say that teacher was belittled in the eyes of that 
 school — in the eyes of men — -in the eye of God. 
 Nay, rather was it not ennobling, even to the like- 
 ness of the Heavenly Master who suflfered, the just 
 for the unjust, to bring us to Grod. 
 
 The teacher' s profession does not declare, in so 
 many words, "My object is to bring the soul from 
 the darkness of sin into the light of a Saviour' s for- 
 giveness," but from the very necessities of the case 
 much of immortal destiny will be required at the 
 instructor' s hand. This is the grandest fact of the 
 teacher's life. Let us grasp it; let it fill our souls 
 
156 Tlorlh-EasUrn Ohw 
 
 with light ; let it fringe with radiance every cloud of 
 disappointment, weariness and care ; let it be the 
 earnest of onr richest compensations ; and if before 
 its responsibility we cry out, ' ' Who is sufficient for 
 these things?" the answer of the inspired writer is 
 ready for our comfort, "Our sufficiency is of God." 
 
 PROMOTIONS AND EXAMINATIONS. 
 
 BY E. F. MOULTON, OBEELIN. 
 
 In discussing this question of promotions, the 
 proposition that the pupil, having performed the 
 work of the preceding grade thoroughly and well, 
 should receive promotion to the next higher grade, 
 is fundamental. 
 
 Corollary to this proposition is the fact that 
 having done well the work of the preceding grade 
 is sufficient evidence that he is capable of success- 
 fully doing the work in the succeeding grade. 
 
 Involved in these statement^ are the questions : 
 
 The quantity of the work required. 
 
 The quality of the work required. 
 
 The character of the work required. 
 
 The time required to do the work. 
 
Teachers' Association. 157 
 
 Subordinate to these questions is another ques- 
 tion, as to what are the best means of determining 
 whether or not the pupil has accomplished his 
 work in a manner to justify his promotion, on the 
 basis I have laid down. I take it for granted that 
 all admit the truth of the proposition, that if the 
 work of one grade has been well done, the pupils 
 are prepared for the next, and deserve promotion. 
 But whether the pupils have been able to do the 
 work well depends entirely upon how much work 
 they have been obliged to do in a given time, what 
 kind of work has been given them to perform, and 
 how well they are required to perform it. There is 
 a certain amount of mental labor that the average 
 child mind can master successfully, beyond this 
 limit the scholar should not be urged. To require 
 too much mental effort on the part of the child is 
 more perilous to successful study in the future than 
 to require too little effort in this direction. ' 
 
 Every teacher of experience has known cases of 
 pupils who, in one grade, have stood at the head of 
 the school in their almost perfect scholarship, that 
 in the next grade, or the next, have fallen back 
 among the poorest scholars in the school, simply 
 because of overwork in the previous grade. We 
 all know that nervous energy can be kept up on a 
 
158 J\forth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 high tension only for a time. After every mental 
 strain there must come a relapse ; nervous exhaus- 
 tion will take place. Hence, by keeping the child's 
 mind on a high nervous strain from day to day the 
 year round, as is the case in many schools, with 
 many of the pupils, it becomes weakened, and the 
 whole object of the child's education is thwarted 
 early in life. Giving the children too much to do 
 in school not infrequently discourages them in the 
 beginning of their course. Thus they form a dis- 
 taste for study and shirk their work, and when 
 weighed in the balance for promotion are found 
 wanting. 
 
 It is important, then, in order to have our pupils 
 well prepared for promotion, that we do not lay out 
 so much work in our course of study as to overwork 
 them, to discourage them, or oblige them to do it 
 superficially ; but rather to make the amount com- 
 mensurate with the time and the average ability of 
 the youth in our schools. 
 
 There is a quite general complaint among teach- 
 ers — and probably not without reason — that they 
 are obliged to teach too many things to teach any 
 of them well ; that the labor of their pupils, 
 (although they believe in a division of labor,) is 
 divided into so many parts as to confuse their 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 159 
 
 minds, obstruct their progress, and prevent the 
 results expected of them at the close of the month, 
 term or year; that for this reason, also, many of 
 their pupils fail of promotion. 
 
 If we look over the course of study and the 
 programme of daily vrork in most of our graded 
 schools, we shall End from six to ten different 
 branches of study to which we require our pupils 
 to give their attention during the five or six hours oi 
 the day they are expected to be in the school room ; 
 sufficient, indeed, to confuse the adult mind of the 
 teacher who has a knowledge of each branch. How 
 much more confusing to the child who is learning 
 for the first time the elementary principles of all the 
 branches. 
 
 In fact the young mind is apparently loaded with 
 a variety of subjects that would befog the oldest and 
 clearest heads. Yet the pupils are expected to have 
 clear and definite ideas on all these subjects, and 
 bear the test of the examiner' s probe ; and, if found 
 deficient in any particular, fail of obtaining the 
 object for which they have struggled for a year. Is it 
 surprising that when the scholars see that they must 
 wade through this same multifarious work for an- 
 other year, and perhaps with the same result, that 
 they fall out of school altogether? If, then, the 
 
160 ?(orni-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 quantity and character of our work are any way 
 responsible for evil results in this direction, should 
 we not consider the matter and introduce the proper 
 remedies ? 
 
 In regard to the quality of the work required, I 
 suppose there is but one opinion, and that is, that it 
 should be the very best — thorough, clear and accu- 
 rate. This is the only kind of work that gives 
 culture, power and strength to the mind, and ena- 
 bles it to grasp and make its own the great questions . 
 of science and art that are within the reach of every 
 boy and girl in our public schools. A true culture 
 and discipline of mind are the things that will best 
 prepare our scholars for what is above and beyond 
 them, and evidently is the true basis of promotions. 
 
 Time. — I am well satisfied that regular promo- 
 tions should not take place oftener than once a year, 
 for the following reasons: First. No part of our 
 elementary school work can be satisfactorily accom- 
 plished in a less time than this. Secondly. Any less 
 time would cause an interruption in the work of the 
 teacher and scholar that would be a detriment to 
 both. Thirdly. It would necessitate a change of 
 teachers, which would greatly retard efficient work 
 in our schools. 
 
 These numberless changes and interruptions to 
 
Teachers' Association. 161 
 
 which the school work would be subject, could 
 hardly be compensated for by any advantage a 
 system of more frequent promotions might inaugu- 
 rate. It certainly would be an advantage to a pupil 
 who should fail of promotion, not to be kept back 
 in his work for but one term, providing, however, 
 that it was not necessary for him to go over only the 
 work of the preceding term ; otherwise it would be 
 a disadvantage. I doubt, indeed, whether we would 
 be justified to Accept any change of time of regular 
 promotion for the benefit of the delinquent scholar, 
 if, at the same time, it would be in any respect 
 a disadvantage to the majority of the. pupils in the 
 school. At least it would not be utilitarian — the 
 greatest good to the greatest number. There is rea- 
 son to believe that very many more would fail of 
 promotion if the time were shortened. In a year 
 there is time to accomplish a special work which 
 could only be begun in a term ; time for the teacher 
 to become acquainted with her pupils, to understand 
 their natures, their capacities for mental labor, their 
 aptitude to learn — in a word, their strength and their 
 weaknesses. I consider this very important, and 
 feel that a teacher must have this acquaintance with 
 and knowledge of her pupils before she can do her 
 whole duty efficiently and well. It is also of quiet 
 11 
 
162 NoriTi-Easiern Ohio 
 
 as much importance for the pupils to know the 
 teacher and understand her, before they can do 
 their work without restraint. 
 
 The hurry, excitement and consequent confusion 
 a school must be in under the pressure of constant 
 preparation for promotion, must be derogatory to 
 its highest interests. 
 
 If there is need of reform in our system of pro- 
 motions, it surely is not in a change of time. The 
 time, as now established in most of our schools, 
 seems the' most natural, most convenient and best 
 adapted to our system of public school instruction 
 of any that has ever as yet been recommended. 
 
 I have been speaking thus far of regular promo- 
 tions, which pertain to the whole school. There are 
 cases of individual scholars for whom we should 
 make exceptions; persons who, because of their 
 unusual natural ability, or early training at home, 
 or of their more advanced age, may be able to do 
 the work in less time than the average pupil. For 
 this class of scholars, which are fortunately, or 
 unfortunately, rare, there should be an invariable 
 rule, which would be to promote them whenever 
 the teacher and superintendent were convinced they 
 had done the work well, and had received the full 
 discipline of the grade they were in, thus being 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 163 
 
 prepared for the work of the next higher grade. As I 
 have hinted, this class of persons is not numerous ; 
 the average ability of children is more uniform than 
 people are accustomed to think ; yet numerous 
 enough, perhaps, to make trouble in grading 
 schools. I would place them iinder exceptions, and 
 promote them when prepared. 
 
 In consideration, then, of the large amount of 
 work we are requiring of .all our scholars in the 
 different grades of our public schools, of the many 
 and various things we are trying to teach them, of 
 the high standard of scholarship every ambitious 
 teacher desires her school to reach, and of the 
 limited time the pupils have for the accomplish- 
 ment of so much mental labor, is it not possible 
 that in our ambition to have a full, comprehensive 
 and what may be called a fine course of study, to 
 present to our patrons and friends, we have over- 
 reached the physical and mental capacity and 
 strength of the children and youth of our genera- 
 tion, and that we ourselves are in a measure respon- 
 sible for the failures of pupils to reach the standard 
 of scholarship which shall gain them promotion? 
 Investigation in this direction could do no harm, 
 and might give us the key to the whole question 
 under discussion. 
 
164 Norlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 If a knowledge of the work in one grade, and 
 the discipline- that the gaining of this knowledge 
 ought to give to the mind of the pupil, are to be the 
 condition of promotion, then surely it is the busi- 
 ness of the educator to prepare only such work, in 
 quantity and character, as comes within the limit 
 of the ability of the average pupil. We all know 
 that education is not having the mind crammed 
 with facts, or in having a certain knowledge of a 
 good many things, but rather in understanding well 
 the great principles underlying all facts, and the 
 discipline obtained from the study of these prin- 
 ciples. Consequently, I say, if the pupil has done 
 well this kind of work in the preceding grade, if 
 his intellectual faculties have been properly devel- 
 oped, that this is suflBcient evidence of his ability to 
 do the work in the next higher grade ; providing, 
 •of course, that the work of the next higher grade 
 naturally follows the work he has already accom- 
 plished. 
 
 I know of no other safe basis of promotion than 
 this. Closely connected with this arises the question 
 of how shall we determine the fact that the pupil has 
 done his work thoroughly, and obtained the' proper 
 discipline of mind to justify his promotion. I would 
 recommend that this be determined in three ways. 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 165 
 
 First. That the conviction and recommendation 
 of the teacher guide the superintendent in his decis- 
 ion. The child's teacher, who has had him under 
 her eye, in her care, and is more or less responsible 
 for his educational status; who has watched his 
 mental growth from day to day and month to 
 month ; who understands his habits of study, and 
 knows better than any one else can, whether he has 
 done the work of the year well and is prepared for 
 the next, should, in a large degree at least, deter- 
 mine his promotion. It will probably be said the 
 teacher is too much interested to render an unbiased 
 opinion in regard to a matter that involves to a large 
 extent her own reputation, as well as that of her 
 pupils. I would claim that she is too much inter- 
 ested to render any other than an unbiased opinion 
 and give her honest conviction. It certainly would 
 be much more to her discredit to give a class into 
 the hands of another teacher, unprepared for the 
 work before them, than to say at once, "Many of 
 my pupils have not been able to do the work laid 
 out for them. I may be to blame, but I have done 
 the best I could under the circumstances." 
 
 Again, a teacher could not well have in charge a 
 class of pupils for a year or more without becoming 
 personally interested in their welfare, so much so 
 
166 mrlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 that she would not be willing to h!ave them go for- 
 ward or remain back unless she honestly thought it 
 would be for their highest good, educationally. This 
 knowledge and interest must render the teacher 
 eminently fit to judge impartially and- with much 
 wisdom in a case of so vital importance to her 
 pupils.. I believe in the "eternal fitness of things," 
 espfecially cif this thing. 
 
 Secondly. As another means of determining the 
 student' s fitness for promotion, I would recommend 
 that a daily record of the pupils' recitations be kept 
 by the teacher, and presented as an aid in deciding 
 this question, fraught with so much importance 
 to the parties interested. I am well aware I am 
 treading on dangerous ground here. I presume 
 I am alone in my convictions on this point, and 
 am laying myself liable to the appellation of 
 fossil or fogy. Nevertheless, my opinion is hon- 
 est, and I do not propose to give up a system 
 that has served me better than any and all other 
 schemes that have been substituted for it, in 
 showing me just what my teachers and pupils are 
 doing every day, from term to term, and in stimu- 
 lating both teachers and scholars to earnest and 
 faithful labor. I claim for the daily marking system 
 what others claim for the monthly examination, with 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 167 
 
 the advantage of its being daily instead of monthly ; 
 with this other advantage that we get the real work 
 of the school, and not the work of a spasmodic effort 
 of teacher and scholar for a specific purpose. When 
 in doubt in regard to what to do in a not very clear 
 case for promotion, there is nothing that aids me so 
 much in coming to a just and proper decision as to 
 examine the daily record of the pupil for the year. 
 
 Thirdly. While I should use the daily record, 
 I would not give up examinations ; I believe they 
 answer a purpose for which nothing can be substi- 
 tuted. I would recommend examinations as a third 
 means of deciding the applicant's fitness for promo- 
 tion. With the daily record examinations would 
 not necessarily be as frequent as without it. I did 
 think of discussing this subject of examinations to 
 some extent, but I prefer not to draw the attention 
 of this Association from the main topic under dis- 
 cussion, which is much the more important question 
 to decide at the present time. 
 
 Then, as means of determining the fitness of a 
 class for promotion, I recapitulate : 
 
 1. The teacher's judgment. 
 
 2. The teacher' s daily record. 
 
 3. The examinations by the superintendent, or 
 proper committee, of every pupil. 
 
168 J\forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 If the examinations were monthly, I woald- take 
 the average for the year ; one examination at the 
 close of the year would not be a sufficient test. 
 
 There is a practical question, in this connection, 
 which was suggested by the lady Assistant Super- 
 intendent of the schools of Cleveland, when the 
 question of promotions was first brought before this 
 Association : what shall we do with pupils who, 
 having gained promotion, fail to do the work of the 
 grade to which they have been promoted ? I would 
 add the question of what shall we do with those 
 who fail of promotion? I am unable to answer 
 either of these questions satisfactorily to myself, 
 though having many to dispose of from time to 
 time. 
 
 Our rule, in the first case, is to put them back 
 into the grades from which they were promoted ; in 
 the second case, to let them remain where they are 
 and go over the work a second time. The result, in 
 either case, for the most part, is the withdrawal of 
 the pupils from school by indignant parents ; some 
 to the street, where they are ediicated for another 
 kind of school, sustained at public expense, others 
 to private schools, which are for the most part 
 misnomers. 
 
 In my experience I find that of those who are 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 169 
 
 '•'■demoted,^'' and those who fail of promotion, not 
 more than half remain in school, and generally their 
 education ends there ; of course those who remain 
 in the schools, some, from a feeling that they have 
 done the work once, or from being discouraged, fail 
 to apply themselves,. and end the second year with 
 the same result as the first ; surely it is that not one 
 out of three ever succeed as scholars. I have tried 
 various experiments to keep this class of pupils up 
 in their grade. I have had teachers give them a 
 few minutes of personal attention while the other 
 pupils were studying, and with this help they have 
 often been able to go on with their class. Where 
 there have been quite a number, I have had them 
 formed into delinquent classes, giving them the 
 opportunity, in this way, of regaining what they 
 had lost. I have had some success in visiting 
 parents, or by having them come to my office, in 
 interesting them in behalf of their children, and by 
 their authority securing some study at home during 
 evenings." 
 
 In the case of those who fail of promotion in some 
 one or two studies, I promote them on the condition 
 that they shall, during the long vacation, make up 
 what they have failed to get, and sustain an exam- 
 ination at the commencement of the Fall term. In 
 
ITO T^orlJi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 this way many have been saved, with much extra 
 trouble, of course, on the part of the teacher and 
 myself. But how great the compensation, if we have 
 saved a boy or girl from growing up in ignorance, 
 and from its usual attendant results. 
 
 I am feeling more and more each day, as I 
 understand the value of pure, noble and unselfish 
 manhood and womanhood in our land, that it is a 
 fearful responsibility for superintendents or teachers 
 to be the direct or indirect cause of putting our 
 youth into the street at an early age, when they are 
 susceptible of its worst influences. By doing this, 
 we may raise the standard of scholarship in our 
 schools, but if it is at the expense of ruined morals, 
 ruined manhood, and ruined souls, the compensa- 
 tion is too small. 
 
 The demand of the hour is not to press our girls 
 and boys out of the Schools by work beyond their 
 physical and mental powers, but rather to open wide 
 the doors of our public schools to all classes, and 
 even to bring them in by the strong arm of the law. 
 As educators, we must answer this demand. It is 
 imperative. 
 
Teachers' :>lssocialion. 171 
 
 HOJSrOR-MElSr. 
 
 BY MISS ELLEN A. DAELING, WARREN". 
 
 The spirit of contradiction is abroad in the land. 
 Modest, sensitive and reverential people are some- 
 what surprised at, and fearful of, the apparition. 
 Polite people (that is, those who are polite and 
 nothing more) call it by polite names. Would-be 
 profound people meet it by day and by night, with 
 a manner of recognition, intended to be familiar and 
 easy, yet in which the close observer may perceive 
 something of anxiety, if not of positive alarm. But 
 it is reserved to the fledgeling philosopher, and mis- 
 anthropic youth of nineteen, fully to justify its 
 character and carry forward its mission. Judging 
 by the results of its advent, the former would appear , 
 to be that of a disbeliever in everything popularly 
 supposed to be true ; the latter the upbuilding and 
 maintenance of everything new, because unlikely 
 and opposing. As displayed by its imbibers, it 
 would seem to possess great impartiality. Their 
 attacks are made indiscriminately upon everything 
 which is asserted by any class, sect, trade, profession 
 or fraternity in existence. The main object which 
 
172 'Morlh-Easlern OMo 
 
 these nondescript revolutionists seem to have pro- 
 posed to themselves is to prove that whatever is, is 
 not. They have up-hill work at the best, and it is, 
 perhaps, ungenerous to attempt adding anything to 
 their task ; but they have grievously offended of late 
 by their assaults upon the honor-men of our schools 
 and colleges, and the time may have come at least 
 to parry their merciless strokes. 
 
 It is not asserted that injustice is shown in 
 awarding these honors. Good scholarship ranks 
 everything in the school, and this, we know, is 
 rarely maintained through a full course of study 
 without the accompaniments of persevering indus- 
 try and good morals. Excepting the rare cases in 
 which this is not true, and the honor-men enter 
 upon their career a little in advance of their class- 
 mates, so far as their school preparation is con- 
 cerned. Therefore when we are told that under 
 their names upon the commencement programme 
 might as well be written, "Positively no re-appear- 
 ance," our first inquiry is in regard to the truth of 
 the assertion. Having neither facts nor figures (in 
 sufficient numbers) to prove the contrary, we shall 
 be compelled to admit the statement in our argu- 
 ment. For ourselves individually, however, we 
 must reserve the right to intrench us after the 
 
Teachers' Association. 173 
 
 manner of the heroine in one of Mrs. Stowe' s novels, 
 who declared, in regard to a disputed point, that 
 she didn't believe it, and she didn't intend to 
 believe it — a position which, the anthor comments, 
 "no sensible person who understands human nature 
 will ever attempt to controvert." But, returning 
 to the charge, what shall we say of these alleged 
 obscure and unimportant careers. In estimating 
 success, we must first understand what end was 
 proposed. The merchant's clerk does not, with 
 justice, call the well-doing tinner's apprentice a 
 failure. A bricklayer is not blamed for the unfin- 
 ished work of the carpenter ; and the surgeon does 
 not arraign the clergyman for inability to set a 
 broken bone, but for lack of tact or wisdom in 
 ministering to a mind diseased. The only vantage 
 ground which the honor spoken (or tacitly acknowl- 
 edged) grants to its recipient, is that of superior 
 scholarship. That is the token which his course 
 thus far has given to the world. He may, or may 
 not, possess a fine physical organization, winning 
 manners and charming conversational powers. He 
 may have sensitive or steady nerves, be sympathetic 
 or apathetic, bold or timid, impatient or apt to wait 
 the revelations of "time, the wonder-worker." In 
 the different professions and occupations commonly 
 
174 J\forth-Easlern Ohio 
 
 chosen by educated, cultured men, it is well known 
 that any one of these qualities, and many others, 
 have as much to do with failure or success as good 
 or poor scholarship. But in the verdict delivered 
 upon the honor-men by a jury composed of those 
 who robbed the defendants of rest and recreation to 
 translate their Greek and write their abstracts, the 
 standard is an eminent position in some calling then 
 totally untried. Is this the proper test? Or is it 
 candid and just judgment to approve or condemn 
 one according to that which he hath and not accord- 
 ing to that which he hath not. Not that we would 
 excuse our honorable ones for neglecting to use any 
 gift or grace conferred upon them, but only that it 
 should not be required to wrest some other equal or 
 greater honor from the world to avoid the sneer on 
 account of that already awarded. 
 
 Admitting what has been claimed by the afore- 
 mentioned race of philosophers — that scripture is 
 fulfilled, that the last are first and the first last, 
 that the honor-men of the school and college are 
 least esteemed beyond the classic shades — we natur- 
 ally inquire, "Is it worth while to aspire to such 
 preferment? Is there danger in holding out such 
 rewards ? Does -the winner of the prize conclude 
 that having gained this, he has only to rest on his 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 175 
 
 oars and steadily float toward the haven of certain 
 success? This might be in solitary cases, but the 
 error would soon be discovered. And where no 
 public recognition of superiority is made, the effect 
 is essentially the same ; for the admiration of school- 
 mates and the approval of teachers are more sub- 
 tle, and consequently more precious flattery to the 
 aspiring pupil than noisy applause and greenhouse 
 trophies. ^Finding no other adequate reason why 
 the honor-men make but indifferent lawyers, third- 
 rate clergymen and shabby professors, we are com- 
 pelled to conclude that their disability arises either 
 from the amount of the attainments themselves, or 
 from a taste for study which renders the necessary 
 application to other pursuits irksome. Not imagin- 
 ing it possible for any to see peril for their future 
 career in the former, we must accept the latter as 
 the full explanation of their inconsequential lives. 
 Therefore, as teachers, it may become us to inquire 
 whether, by stimulating our talented pupils, we are 
 not wronging society. Robbing the professions and 
 the mercantile world of their possible ornaments, 
 are we entitled even to the rank of private benefac- 
 tors, or are we imitating the vices of the prince of 
 highwaymen without his redeeming qualities. 
 
 "These close students are always impractical," 
 is almost too familiar a remark to need quotation. 
 
176 J^orih-Eastern Ohio 
 
 But compelled to do battle upon ground of the 
 enemy's choosing, and leaving unused our best 
 artillery, we must, if possible, understand at least 
 the range of the hostile guns. Begging pardon of 
 all who make solemn affirmation only with right 
 hands upon the dictionary, we must first define 
 the word impractical. As used in this connection, 
 and shorn of all figures of speech, the meaning 
 is simply this — not producing money. Terms — 
 strictly cash, of your own finding — is the one un- 
 varying challenge to all who demand the honors of 
 a practical career. Does society need any except 
 practical men? Not can it endure, can it support, 
 but does it need? Are men of broad culture and 
 varied intelligence of no weight in the estimation of 
 any fashionable community or class? Are men of 
 calm and ripened judgment so numerous that we 
 can afford to depreciate their value and diminish 
 their numbers? Do the students of nature and of 
 art dwell on a plane so much below that of the 
 busy world around them that we can look down 
 upon their labors? Who reason without prejudice 
 and speak without fear upon the great social and 
 political questions? Who are the prophets, the 
 inspired men, telling us of the glory which hu- 
 manity yet shall see? Whose are the ears that 
 catch the first faint sounds from liberty's bugle? 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 177 
 
 Whose are the eyes that see the first pale tints of 
 the rainbow of peace and love which must yet 
 span the heavens ? ISTot the practical man, but the 
 scholar, with his musty books and busy brain ; 
 the philosopher, with his theories ; the dreamy 
 student of art, with his unbusiness-like gait and 
 reckless schemes ; the poet, with his hollow eyes 
 and hoUower purse; perhaps a few American wo- 
 men, with their bloodless lips and curving spines. 
 
 In some enlightened lands it has been deemed 
 wise to make provision, at state expense, for the 
 support of men who are thus enabled to devote 
 their time to study. It may be wise for those 
 nations ; we offer no criticism. But with our 
 present national debt, and the politicians upon our 
 hands, it would hardly be prudent for us to imitate 
 their method. But could we not afford, without 
 wronging any, to give them the benefit of good 
 countenance ? 
 
 Luscious fruits and fragrant spices, ripened be- 
 neath the tropica] suns, costly fabrics, with their 
 wondrous hues, from far-off looms, pearls from the 
 ocean, gold of the mountains, gems from the mines, 
 are beautiful and excellent, but are they all that 
 is worth our striving? Would we make our land 
 only a centre of trade, of opulence and luxury ; our 
 
 13 
 
178 mrlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 social life merely the complimentary exchange of 
 pasteboard and bon-bons ? Deeper than his gleam- 
 ing jewels has Grod hidden the wondrous secret of 
 their creation. More marvelous his sunlight than 
 any of its imprisoned tints which men have stolen. 
 There are truths lying hid at more dangerous depths 
 than those from which the fainting pearl-diver comes 
 with his doubtful prize. More curious the secrets 
 of animal and vegetable life than anything of their 
 substance which the skill of men has wrought into 
 artful shapes of beauty and use. Shall we yield all 
 our homage to the winner of the material wealth, 
 and reserve, at best, only our pity for those who by 
 searching have gained at least a clew to the Crea- 
 tor s meaning? There is sometimes a fear expressed 
 that much learning makes its possessor mad. Is 
 the real danger here or in the little draughts from 
 wisdom's overflowing fountains? No doubt many a 
 man who has studied long and thought profoundly 
 has, meantime, scoffed at the sublimest truths ; was 
 it knowledge of other subjects, orignorance of these, 
 which compelled him to such a course \ 
 
 Does the astronomer, reaching out to the stars, 
 measuring their distances, noting the perfect har- 
 mony of their movements and the marvelous balanc- 
 ing in their relative positions, talk of the chance 
 
TeacTiers' Association. 179 
 
 which ordained these, because of what he has learn- 
 ed? Does the geologist, exploring the regions of 
 earth's treasures, hidden for the service of man, 
 talk of a Creator too vast in his concerns to care for 
 his creatures, in consequence of the knowledge of 
 these sure witnesses to eternal thought and unceas- 
 ing beneficence ? Is it because of his superior intelli- 
 gence that the zoologist, seeing the perfect adaptation 
 of the lower animals to their elements and climates, 
 the skill with which they provide for their own safety, 
 comfort and sustenance, sneers at the faith of those 
 who joyfully believe that not a sparrow falls to the 
 ground without the Father' s notice ? Living among 
 the delicate colors and more delicate odors of leaf 
 and blossom, does the botanist smile in derision at 
 our loving remembrance of the promise that even as 
 He taketh thought for the lilies so shall He remem- 
 ber us ? Struggling alway with the bonds of time and 
 sense, do the philosopher and the poet cavil at that 
 hope which reaches beyond this life and fondly 
 trusts the realization of its noblest desires in one 
 that is yet to be. If they do, is it because of wis- 
 dom overmuch ; is it not rather because of ignorance 
 of that which they slight? Not through learning, 
 but in spite of it ; not intellect cultivated and devel- 
 oped, but reason shackled by prejudice ; not large 
 
180 ?{orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 attainments, but pride of success ; not contact with. 
 God' s works, but rebellion against His government, 
 make atheists and infidels of the learned as well as 
 the foolish. God hath made all perfect in its time 
 and place. Let us not fear, not scruple to take all 
 of His wisdom which He has given us strength to 
 grasp. 
 
 There is another class whose fears and sympathies 
 are much aroused by the danger that culture will 
 degenerate into mere intellectual dyspepsia. For 
 misers and gluttons of all varieties, it would be 
 difficult to frame any sufficient apology. Any one 
 who is merely receptive, taking much and giving 
 nothing, is only a drone, an encumbrance, whatever 
 may be his professed field of labor. Hoarded mental 
 wealth is no more credit to the possessor than the 
 crowded vaults of the man rich in gold are to tJieir 
 owner. It certainly remains, however, to be proved 
 that the man endowed with superior intellectual 
 ability, is any more likely to render his acquisitions 
 useless to the world than the same man would have 
 been had his talent been any other. In the multi- 
 tude of counsel there is safety, and despising no 
 man's wisdom, learning even of the humblest, is it 
 not wise to believe that our own gifts may be also a 
 criterion to guide us in the choice of our pursuits ? 
 
Teachers' Association. 181 
 
 May not even the despised honor-men safely trust 
 that He who gave them the powers which they 
 possess, and withheld others, will also give them the 
 way and the spirit rightly to employ them. Honor- 
 men we say to-day, which we should not have 
 ventured a year ago. But it is only unassured 
 position that is sensitive in regard to recognition, 
 and we know that in all which has been said, every 
 woman whose name is on the same roll of honor, 
 will understand our meaning and echo our senti- 
 ment, "much more we." Many centuries have 
 elapsed since the grave old monk, after years of 
 patient study and profound meditation, evolved the 
 then startling truth that "women were a part of the 
 human race and like men, redeemed by the blood of 
 Christ." (Some people are never satisfied unless 
 they can carry all their notions to extremes. ) Much 
 thought has been expended on the same subject 
 since his time, and now it has become unfashionable 
 to talk of their intellectual inferiority. We appre- 
 ciate the gallantry with which the leaders have 
 hushed, to an almost inaudible murmur, this once 
 popular war-cry. We admire also the grace with 
 which they have fallen back upon the uncontested 
 ground of stronger muscle and more enduring nerve. 
 Likewise, when we are told that thus far brute force 
 
182 J^orth-Easlern OMo 
 
 has ruled the world, we are dumb before the great 
 preponderance of truth in the statement. But 
 when coupled with this we receive the assurance 
 that such must always be the fsict, we are compelled 
 to hope that in the character of seers our inform- 
 ants may prove less reliable than in that of histori- 
 ans. But it would ill become us to be ungenerous 
 toward such magnanimous opponents. Pioneer 
 workmen have done it mainly alone and too well to 
 make any other willing to attempt a rivalship. There- 
 fore into this uncleared field of prejudice we must 
 hope that they will lead the way. And despite the 
 warnings of >the doctors of medicine and the grave 
 doubts of the doctors of theology, the. record of wo- 
 man will be changed if her only question is not, 
 whither ? before she will follow with eager pace brave 
 leading to another reform in public sentiment.- 
 
Teachers' Associalion. J 83 
 
 HEALTH IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 BY B. A. HINSDALE, A. M., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF HIRAM COLLEGE. 
 
 Perhaps the best introduction to this paper will 
 be a brief account of the way it came to be written. 
 
 At the last meeting of this Association, held in 
 Warren in June, it was stated, in one of the papers 
 read, that excessive demands in the way of study 
 were a pronounced tendency of the public schools. 
 In the discussion that followed, this statement was 
 challenged. It was admitted on all hands that the 
 charge is a very common one ; but it was claimed, 
 on one side, that it has no foundation in fact, but is a 
 sort of cant afloat in the air, while it was insisted, on 
 on the other, that the charge is true. Out of this 
 discussion, which was quite an animated one, grew 
 a motion that I should prepare a paper on the sub- 
 ject, to be read at this meeting. Before this motion 
 was put to vote, I declined to undertake the task, if 
 it were understood that I was to confine myself to 
 the main question, but signified a willingness to do 
 so if allowed to discuss some of its general bearings. 
 With this understanding the motion carried, and the 
 appointment was accepted. 
 
184 Norlh-Easiern Ohio 
 
 In redeeming my promise, let me, first of all, call 
 attention to the fact, that excessive demands in the 
 way of study is a constant and emphatic charge 
 against the public schools. Two classes of wit- 
 nesses, especially, are pretty unanimous in their 
 testimony on this point. The first class consists of 
 those newspaper writers and magazinists who have 
 occasion, from time to time, to discuss our public 
 education. What startling pictures these draw, 
 every now and then ! As a specimen of their work, 
 though it is quite mild in tone, I make an extract 
 from the "Editor's Table" of a late number of the 
 Ladies^ Repository, found under the expressive 
 head, "Cruelty to School Children": 
 
 Though old modes are abandoned, we are of 
 opinion that school teachers still practice cruelties 
 on the sensitive nature of childhood as severe as 
 those of the cherry, oak, birch and rawhide dis- 
 pensation. Sarcasm and ridicule can be made as 
 terrible weapons, and can inflict as savage wounds, 
 as the ruler or rattan. The competitive system — 
 studying for rank and marks and promotion — has 
 its martyrs as well as the rod. In these days school 
 curriculums are overloaded, scholars are overtasked, 
 made to carry on more studies, and to study more 
 hours than is good for the bodily health or for the 
 due growth of the mind in strength and knowledge. 
 Besides the six hours a' day confinement in the 
 
Teachers' Association. 185 
 
 school room, teachers assign tasks for the pupils 
 to con out of school under the eyes of their parents, 
 thus abridging their hours of play and exercise, or 
 robbing parents of the assistance of the children in 
 the various services required in household manage- 
 ment. Six hours a day ought to be the limit of 
 attention to books with every child, during the 
 period of growth, and those six ought to be bro- 
 ken into periods of play and relaxation at due 
 intervals. Assigning exercises for out-of-school 
 hours should in no case be allowed, and keeping 
 after school should be a punishment reserved for 
 cases that require severe measures and stringent 
 discipline. 
 
 In general, we may suppose these literary people 
 believe and feel what they say, at least for the time 
 being. At the same time, however, it is clear that 
 many of them are drawn to the subject by what we 
 may call the newspaper sense. Slashing articles, on 
 almost all subjects, are greedily read by the people. 
 And then the picture of school children, with big 
 heads and small bodies, full of nerves, without 
 lymph or phlegm, thin-blooded and bow-legged, 
 bending all day over books that are both too many 
 and too hard, precocious as Paul Dombey, and 
 going like him to an early grave, has great attrac- 
 tions for the literateur who turns his attention to 
 education. 
 
186 'Norlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 The second class of persons is the medical pro- 
 fession. Am I not within the bounds of truth when 
 I say, that the great majority of practicing physi- 
 cians, especially in the cities, hold the opinion that 
 the burden of study laid on children in the schools 
 is too heavy? And the doctors claim to have excep- 
 tional opportunities for ascertaining the facts. Dr. 
 E. H. Clarke, for example, says the places to study 
 the effects of co-education are "the sick chamber, 
 not the school room; the physician's private con- 
 sultation, not the committee,' s public examination; 
 the hospital, not the college, the workshop or the 
 parlor."* I do not charge the doctors with bring- 
 ing a railing accusation against the teachers. In 
 some respects their opportunities for getting at the 
 facts are no doubt exceptionally good ; but they are 
 peculiarly liable to fall into some fallacies that I 
 shall have occasion to point out before this paper is 
 concluded. 
 
 On the other hand, teachers, as a class, are 
 almost ecLually unanimous- in denying that their 
 pupils are overworked ; and they, too, claim that 
 they have unequaled opportunities of finding out the 
 truth. Whether teachers also are liable to fall into 
 mistakes, will also come in my way to inquire. 
 
 *Sex In Education, pp. 61-3 
 
Teachers' Association. 1 87 
 
 So far as the public mind is concerned, it is a 
 good deal bewildered. Parents, when the question 
 comes before them in a practical way, generally 
 decide with the physician or the teacher, according 
 as the pressure is more or less. 
 
 In the meantime, the question at issue is one of 
 immense importance. Our common schools are a 
 growth of more than two hundred years. They 
 have cost vast sums of money, and infinite pains ; 
 with all their imperfections, they are a fair expres- 
 sion of our average educational sense and culture. 
 We have built them up for the most cogent and im- 
 perative reasons; some intellectual, some political, 
 some moral. We have intended them as a mighty 
 instrument of improvement. Are they rather an 
 instrument of deterioration? Is the health of our 
 children breaking down under their school burdens? 
 Is the American child-constitution unable to sup- 
 port American school instruction as now organized ? 
 Are our efforts to train the mind ruining the body ? 
 If these questions are to be answered in the affirma- 
 tive, we ought to know it, that we may re-adjust 
 our -system ; if in the negative, we ought to know 
 it, that we may silence ignorant clamor. The ques- 
 tion is all the more important, because there is so 
 much reason to think that what I shall venture to 
 
188 l^orlJi-Eastern Ohio 
 
 call the American race, is falling off in physical 
 power. Before making such remarks as I have to 
 offer on this point, let me guard myself against 
 possible misapprehension. 
 
 There is a class of persons who hold that the 
 mind is built up at the expense of the body. They 
 associate a high degree of physical power with a 
 low degree of mental cultivation, and regard weak- 
 ness and effeminacy as characteristics of a high 
 civilization. This opinion I scout utterly. It is a 
 part of that habit of mind which attributes such 
 extraordinary virtues to the savage, as though the 
 savage were not a weak and miserable creature the 
 world over ! The famed Arabian steed, whose fleet- 
 ness is proverbial, it is well known, is no match for 
 the thorough-bred horse of the English or American 
 turf: no more is the rude man of the woods, even 
 in point of physical power and endurance, a match 
 for the thorough-bred man of civilization. It would 
 certainly be strange if God had given us a nature, 
 one-half of which cannot be cultivated, save at the 
 expense of the other half. Still, civilized peoples 
 have often declined physically, as they will no 
 doubt do again. This does not spring from any 
 necessary connection between physic&l weakness 
 and cultivated life, but rather from the vices of the 
 
TeacTiers' :issociaUon. 189 
 
 latter. But without elaborating this thought fur- 
 ther, let me return to the statement that there is 
 much reason to hold that the American people are 
 exhibiting evidences of a decline in physical power. 
 Those who hold that such is the fact, rest their 
 proposition partly on the testimony of the medical 
 profession, and partly on the vital statistics of the 
 country. Under the latter head, for example, it has 
 been ascertained that the number of children under 
 a given age, say fifteen years, as compared with the 
 number of women between fifteen and fifty, is con- 
 stantly becoming smaller. The "Circular of Inform- 
 ation" sent out by the National Bureau of Education 
 for March, 1872, along with other valuable matter 
 from the same source, contains a table compiled from 
 the Census Reports from 1800 to 1860, by Dr. J. M. 
 Toner, a scholarly physician of a statistical turn of 
 mind, that puts this subject in a clear light. In the 
 state of Ohio, within that period, the falling off was 
 more than fifty per cent. In the other states, the 
 results were similar, though not in all cases so strik- 
 ing. In a later publication. Dr. Toner returned 
 to the subject, this time showing that, taking the 
 country together, "in 1830 there were to every thou- 
 sand marriageable women, one thousand nine hun- 
 dred and fifty-two children under fifteen years of age. 
 
190 mrlJi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Ten years later, there were one thousand eight hun- 
 dred and sixty-three, or eighty-nine less children 
 to every thousand women than in 1830. In 1850, 
 this number had declined to one thousand seven 
 hundred and twenty ; in 1860, to one thousand six 
 hundred and sixty-six ; and in 1870, to one thousand 
 five hundred and sixty-eight. The total decline in 
 the forty years was three hundred and eighty-four, 
 or about twenty per cent, of the whole proportional 
 number in 1830.* This startling result is due prin- 
 cipally to two causes. The first is an increasing 
 mortality among children in the large cities, con- 
 sequent upon over-crowding ; and the second, a 
 diminishing birth-rate, consequent on a variety of 
 causes, that need not be here mentioned. Under 
 the first head, I desire to say, that about fifty per 
 cent, of all children born in the large cities die before 
 they reach the age of five ; and under the second, 
 the diminishing birth-rate appears to point unmis- 
 takably to a loss of vital power on the part of our 
 people. 
 
 Especially is it charged that American women 
 are deteriorating physically. Unfortunately, this 
 question, from being a matter of, dry statistical 
 inquiry, has become part of a heated controversy, 
 
 * The Nation, No. 426. 
 
Teachers' Association. 1 91 
 
 from its supposed bearing on co-education, and it 
 accordingly draws to itself some of that "suiTusion 
 of the wiU and the aflfections" of which Bacon speaks 
 in one of his writings. Keeping wide of this con- 
 troversy, I feel bound to say that, from whatever 
 cause, the charge against American women is well 
 founded. 
 
 Into the caiises of this physical deterioration, I 
 make no inquiry. Some Europeans are wont to say 
 that our country does not supply the physical con- 
 ditions of continued physical power and tone. Dr. 
 Clarke seems to lend some countenance to this view, 
 when he argues — 
 
 No race of humankind has yet obtained a perma- 
 nent foothold upon this continent. The Asiatics 
 trace back their life in Asia so far that the distance 
 between to-day and their recorded starting-point 
 seems like a geological epoch. The descendants of 
 the Ptolemies still linger about the Nile. The race 
 that peopled northern Europe, when Greece and 
 Rome were young, not only retains its ancient place 
 and power, but makes itself felt and heard through- 
 out the world. On this continent, races have been 
 born, and lived, and disappeared. Mounds at the 
 west, vestiges in Florida, and traces elsewhere, pro- 
 claim at least two extinct races. The causes of their 
 disappearance are undiscovered. We only know 
 that they are gone. The Indian whom our ancestors 
 
193 Tiorlh-EasUrn OMo 
 
 confronted, was losing his hold on the continent 
 when the Mayflower anchored in Plymouth Bay, 
 and is now rapidly disappearing also. It remains 
 to be seen if the Anglo-Saxon race, which has ven- 
 tured upon a continent that has proved the tomb of 
 antecedent races, can be more fortunate than they in 
 maintaining a permanent grasp upon this western 
 world. One thing, at least, is sure ; it will fail, as 
 previous races have failed, unless it can produce a 
 physique and a brain capable of meeting success- 
 fully the demands that our climate and civilization 
 make upon it.* 
 
 Without either sanctioning this theory or pro- 
 pounding any other, I would urge that the vital 
 condition of our population, apart from any other 
 considerations, furnishes abundant reason why we 
 should investigate the relations of our public schools 
 to the public health. 
 
 Any really valuable inquiry into these relations 
 must be strictly inductive. In this field, it is idle 
 to theorize or speculate. Nothing but carefully 
 observed and registered facts can guide us to satis- 
 factory conclusions. It was for this reason that I 
 declined, at Warren, to undertake a discussion of 
 the main question. In the first place, I had no such 
 experience as would enable me to speak with author- 
 ity ; in the second place, I was not familiar with the 
 
 * The Building of a Brain, pp. 13, 14. 
 
leachers' Association. 193 
 
 literature of the subject ; while it was impossible for 
 me to make good either of these defects. What is 
 more, I was then doubtful, as I still am, whether the 
 data necessary for a general conclusion have been 
 collected. This opinion is held, however, on nega- 
 tive, rather than on positive, grounds. 
 
 But while the inquiry must be strictly inductive, 
 it is an induction attended by some peculiar diffi- 
 culties. We sometimes go wild over a mass of facts. 
 The truth is, facts are of little, if any value, until 
 they have been sifted, classified, and interpreted by 
 the intelligence. The Baconian method has not 
 abolished theory; it has only placed it after the 
 facts, not before them. Suppose it be charged that 
 a large number of children in the schools are in 
 poor health. This is a plain question of fact, and 
 can be very easily determined. But the philosopher 
 asks, what is the cause of this state of affairs ? Ail 
 the facts ever gathered by the vital statistician, until 
 interpreted by a philosopher, will never answer this 
 question. It is a question not easily answered, and 
 I must think that the great majority of teachers and 
 parents, as well as many physicians, from want of 
 the requisite powers and the habit of analysis, are 
 incapable of the effort. It brings us into the field of 
 cause and effect, that high region of thought where 
 
 13 
 
194 J\fort?i-Eastern Ohio 
 
 so many and such serioiis mistakes are made in rea- 
 soning. Without any logical discrimination of these 
 mistakes, let me say, one of the most frequent and 
 flagrant is this : to conclude, when one thing follows 
 another, that the two stand in the relation of cause 
 and effect ; thus confounding post hoc and propter 
 hoc — a head under which more popular fallacies can 
 be exhibited than under any other known to logic. 
 For example, it has been observed that the ratio of 
 the convicts in our prisons who cannot read and 
 write, to those who can, is very great ; from which 
 fact it has been inferred that illiteracy is the princi- 
 pal cause of crime. That there is no such necessary 
 relation, has been fully shown by Mr. Herbert Spen- 
 cer in a passage which has taught one person, at 
 least, to be slow, especially when reasoning on social 
 aflairs, to accept co-existence or consecutiveness of 
 time, as indicating cause and effect. Here is the 
 passage : 
 
 We have no evidence that education, as com- 
 monly understood, is a preventive of crime. Those 
 perpetually reiterated newspaper paragraphs, in 
 which the ratios of instructed to uninstructed con- 
 victs are so triumphantly stated, prove nothing. 
 Before any inference can be drawn, it must be shown 
 that these instructed and uninstructed convicts come 
 from two equal sections of society, alike in all other 
 
Teachers' Association. 195 
 
 respects but that of knowledge — similar in rank 
 and occupation, having similar advantages, laboring 
 under similar temptations. But this is not only not 
 the truth ; it is nothing like the truth. The many 
 ignorant criminals belong to a most unfavorably cir- 
 cumstanced class ; whilst the few educated ones are 
 from a class comparatively favored. As things 
 stand, it would be equally logical to infer that crime 
 arises from going without animal food, or from 
 living in badly ventilated rooms, or from wearing 
 dirty shirts ; for were the inmates of a gaol to be 
 catechized, it would doubtless be found that the 
 majority of them had been placed in these conditions. 
 Ignorance and crime are not cause and effect ; they 
 are coinciding results of the same cause. To be 
 wholly untaught is to have moved amongst those 
 whose incentives to wrong-doing is strongest ; to be 
 partially taught is to have been one of a class subject 
 to less urgent temptations : to be well taught is to 
 have lived almost beyond the reach of the usual mo- 
 tives for transgression. Ignorance, therefore, (at least 
 inthe statistics referred to,) simply indicates the pres- 
 sure of crime-producing influences, and can no more 
 be called the cause of crime than the falling of a 
 barometer can be called the cause of rain. * 
 
 Ignorance may produce crime ; no doubt it does ; 
 but that the crime found in our prisons is not imme- 
 diately produced by it, Mr. Spencer certainly proves. 
 Let us apply a similar analysis to the matter in hand. 
 
 ♦Social statics, pp. 379-80. 
 
196 'Norl'h-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Let it be granted that an undue proportion of the 
 pupils in the schools are breaking down in health. 
 It does not follow that the causes will be found at 
 school. School is only one element in the child's 
 life. He leads a home life besides, and very likely a 
 social lifp into the bargain. Now the cause of his 
 loss of health may be at home, or in the social circle. 
 His health may fail because he is badly fed or clothed, 
 because he is overworked at home, because he spends 
 too much time in society or on the streets ; it may be 
 on account of one, or two, or all of these facts. 
 Under these circumstances, it will be granted that it 
 requires a good deal of knowledge and acumen to 
 determine the real cause. But a pupil' s health shows 
 signs of giving way, a physician is called in, the six 
 hours a day spent at school is to the physician, as it 
 probably is to the parent, the most obtrusive fact of 
 the pupil's life. The physician says the child is 
 studying too hard, and recommends that he be taken 
 from the school ; while the report goes abroad that 
 the school teacher is working the children to death. 
 Obviously, in the case supposed, the physician 
 should say, clothe this child in a more rational man- 
 ner, give him more wholesome food, take him out of 
 society, keep him off the streets, and do not let him 
 sit up so late at night. Whether the demands made 
 
Teachers' Association. 197 
 
 on school children are excessive or not, I am con- 
 vinced that a good deal of the ill health that is 
 charged to the schools, onght to carried to the 
 account of bad handling at home. 
 
 But for argument's sake, we will grant that the 
 doctors are right, and that the trouble is at school. 
 But where at school? Here we are confronted by 
 another difBculty as embarrassing as the one just 
 considered. As school is only one element in a pu- 
 pil's life ; so the amount of study required of him is 
 only one element of his school life. Other elements 
 enter into the problem ; and it must not be con- 
 cluded that the teacher's demands are excessive, 
 because his pupils are suffering in health. The 
 teacher may not impose too much work, but he may 
 require it to be done in such ways, or he may have 
 such absurd methods of instruction, that the amount 
 required is a weariness to the flesh as well as to the 
 mind. What is more, the physical conditions under 
 which the work is performed may be unfavorable. 
 The National Commissioner very justly says : 
 
 Headache, bleeding at the nose, diseases of the eye 
 ■and spine, dyspepsia, affections of the bronchial 
 tubes and lungs, exanthematous fevers, diphtheria, 
 and many other complaints, have undoubtedly been 
 induced, or aggravated by the collection of numer- 
 ous children in school under unfavorable conditions, 
 
198 J\lorlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 as to ventilation, light, lieat, cleanliness, exercise 
 and habits of study. School furniture is responsible 
 for much curvature of the spine. Bad print, bad 
 light, and bad position of the head while studying 
 continually, cause distortions of the eye and result 
 in trouble. * 
 
 This statement is sufficient to show that our school 
 administration may be working badly in a sanitary 
 point of view, and yet the fault may not be 
 unreasonable demands in the way of study. At 
 all events, there is here plenty of room to fall into 
 fallacies. As the six hours a day in school is the 
 most striking fact in. the pupil's life, and therefore 
 more likely to be seized hold of than any other to 
 explain the loss of health ; so the lessons are the 
 most striking fact of his school life, and therefore the 
 more likely to be charged with such ill health as the 
 schools produce. Hence, as the school is often 
 charged with consequences really caused by forces 
 acting at home, so the lessons are often charged with 
 the effects of poor ventilation, bad heating arrange- 
 ments, and insufficient exercise. When a human 
 being's life is marked by no prominent fact, it is 
 frequently difficult demonstrably to trace disease to 
 its real cause ; and the demonstration is especially 
 difficult in the case of the pupil at school. 
 
 ♦Report for 1872. 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaiion. 199 
 
 That a good deal of disease and many deaths are 
 traceable to the common schools, and other places of 
 education, I have not the slightest doubt. But it has 
 been well remarked: "When we look for the causes 
 which explain any known evil, we usually find that 
 many concurrent causes unite to produce the result. 
 It is seldom that we can trace in society any great 
 evil to the action of any sole cause."* Notably is 
 this the case with young persons attending school. 
 Perhaps some of these concurrent causes should be 
 stated at greater length. 
 
 The Board of Health for the state of Michigan, 
 a little more than a year ago, appointed a committee 
 on buildings, public and private, including ventila- 
 tion, heating, etc., at the head of which was placed 
 Dr. R. C. Kedzie. The report of the board for 1873 
 contains a report from Dr. Kedzie on "School 
 Buildings, in relation to their construction, warming, 
 and ventilation, as influencing the health of teachers 
 and scholars." This very valuable document I have 
 consulted in preparing this paper. Dr. Kedzie 
 shows that, in Michigan, much mischief is done by 
 over-crowding school rooms. He also insists, and 
 with manifest truth, that great injury is caused, 
 especially to girls of certain ages, by lofty school 
 
 *See Dr. Kedzle's report mentioned below. 
 
200 mrlTi-Eadern Ohio 
 
 houses, entailing upon pupils an unreasonable 
 amount of stair-climbing. He says under the first 
 head, "the lowest estimate would require three 
 hundred cubic feet of space, and twenty-five feet of 
 floor space for each scholar ;" and under the second, 
 he insists that a school- house, except for the most 
 imperative reasons, should not be more than two 
 stories high. He also indicts the large school 
 houses, those where a thousand or fifteen hundred 
 children are massed, and claims that houses of 
 moderate size are far better. He also traces much ill 
 health to imperfect warming and bad ventilation. 
 In order to obtain satisfactory information in regard 
 to ventilation, Dr. Kedzie visited some thirty schools, 
 "examining their principal rooms, their mode of 
 warming and ventilation, the degree of impurity in 
 the air of the school rooms, their condition in regard 
 to temperature, dryness," etc. The results he 
 tabulates in his report. He frequently found a 
 difference in the temperature at the floor level and 
 at the desk level of from eight to fifteen degrees ; 
 in one instance it' was nineteen, and in another it was 
 twenty-one degrees. In the last case the teacher 
 exclaimed in astonishment, "Why, we ought to 
 keep the head cool and the feet warm, and how am 
 I to do it?" The reply was, that in such a school 
 
Teachers' Association. 201 
 
 room it was impossible, unless the children stood on 
 their heads ! Plainly it would be as reasonable to 
 expect a man to be healthy, when his head was in 
 the torrid zone and his feet were in the frigid, as it 
 would be to expect children to be healthy whose 
 extremities were immersed in air of such different 
 temperatures. Dr. Kedzie' s report, of which I have 
 not even attempted an analysis, is deserving of wide 
 attention ; it is good reading in Ohio as well as in 
 Michigan. 
 
 The attempt of the teacher to trace a pupil' s loss 
 of health to its proper cause or causes, is attended 
 by some peculiar difficulties. A statement of these 
 will show the fallacies into which he is liable to fall. 
 Those which I shall mention, arise from his bias 
 as a teacher. He knows about what a pupil should 
 do ; he has his own standards of work, resting on 
 experience and formulated in ' ' the course ; ' ' and 
 he is constantly falling into habits of routine. 
 Not only so, he is interested in his own work, 
 thinks the business of the pupil is to be a pupil, and 
 is as apt as other people to locate the caiises of evils 
 at a distance from himself. In other words, his bias 
 predisposes him to trace failure in health to the 
 pupil's home life. What is more, he probably 
 knows less of the child's home life than the 
 
203 J^orth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 physician or the parent does of the school life. 
 If a child leaves the school, perhaps the teacher 
 does not know why ; or, if he knows that the cause 
 is ill health, he loses sight of the invalid, and thinks 
 no more about him. Besides, the teacher is occu- 
 pied with the prominent features of his work ; in his 
 thoughts he emphasizes the things that are to his 
 mind ; he is more interested in his strong and 
 vigorous pupils than in the weak ones. His atten- 
 tion is fixed on those pupils who keep on to the end 
 of the march, and, as the end is neared, he scarcely 
 notices how the column has thinned out ; or, if he 
 does, he hardly inquires after the missing. I do not 
 mean that this is true of all teachers, or of the same 
 teacher at all times ; I mean only that these are 
 very natural and very pronounced tendencies of the 
 teaching class. It might be supposed that the 
 teacher, of all people in the world, would be fitted 
 to decide how much study should be required of 
 pupils in school ; probably he is, but enough has 
 been said to show how fallible his judgments are 
 likely to be. To these considerations two others may 
 be added : the teacher' s relative want of physiologi- 
 cal and psychological training, and his perpetual 
 tendency toward routine. 
 
 Fellow-teachers, you will agree that I have been 
 
Teachers' Association. 303 
 
 markedly successful in talking around the subject. 
 But you will remember tbat I never promised to do 
 more than talk around it. Perhaps I have said 
 enough to emphasize the subject, and to furnish some 
 useful hints for making the inquiry. Let us now- 
 pass to some related matters. 
 
 If it be true that the vital condition of our popula- 
 tion is deteriorating, in what relation does this fact 
 stand to our work as teachers ? Some will say : 
 "Grant that the child ought to be able to perform 
 the tasks assigned ; grant that he is able, provided 
 the home life were what it should be ; nevertheless, 
 homes are what they are, and are not likely to be 
 rapidly changed for the better. What shall the 
 teacher therefore do % Shall he pay no attention to 
 the common conditions of child life ? Shall he add 
 the last straw that breaks the camel' s back % No, let 
 him recognize the facts as they are, and accommo- 
 date himself to them. Let him lop off a part of his 
 demands at once, and thus give the children rest and 
 health." Concerning this view, two things should 
 be said. 
 
 In the first place, it is important to ascertain the 
 real cause of any evil, that correction may be made 
 where it belongs. If the home life of the child is 
 unnatural, this fact ought to be known ; especially 
 
204 ^forth-Eastern OMo 
 
 ought it to be known, if so unnatural as to interfere 
 with his education. If society is to blame for a low 
 vital condition in the schools, then society should 
 correct itself. People must be given to understand 
 that school is a fact of first importance in the life of 
 a pupil. But, in the second pl^ce, the wise teacher 
 will practically recognize all facts, relating to the 
 child's life, in so far as they are related to his effi- 
 ciency and success as a pupil. He will not add the 
 straw that breaks the back of the camel, although he 
 sees a whole bale of straw on the animal' s back that 
 ought not to be there. He will seek first to have the 
 bale taken off. He will take the facts of average 
 home and school life into the account, in adjusting 
 his system. But while he inquires what is, and 
 what is likely to be, he will not cease to work for 
 reform where it is really called for. 
 
 One glance at another matter: all courses of 
 study, all class work, is based on the doctrine of 
 averages. The demands made upon pupils in the 
 public schools are graduated in that way ; they can 
 be graduated in no other. Now in any normal, 
 healthy civilization, there is always a variety of tal- 
 ent and of power. Hence, the school standard cannot 
 be put up to the level of the best minds, nor put 
 down to the level of the poorest. To do the first 
 
Teachers' Association. 205 
 
 would be to sacrifice the majority to the geniuses ; 
 to do the second would be to sacrifice the majority to 
 the dunces. Here is the greatest defect in the public 
 school system : it must be grounded in the wants of 
 mediocrity. It gives small play for individuality of 
 mental power and character. To be sure, this is a 
 difliculty in all education except the solitary ; but it 
 is peculiarly so in public school education. Some- 
 thing more can probably be done to relieve this 
 difiiculty, but it can never be wholly overcome. 
 With the general features of this subject, I am not 
 concerned, and shall ofl'er but a word or two on the 
 special feature. The doctrine of averages , works 
 badly for the two extremes of ability: for bright 
 students and for dull ones, for the strong and for the 
 weak. In any school of considerable size, you will 
 be sure to find two classes of pupils : those who are 
 overtaxed mentally or physically, or both, and those 
 who are capable of doing more work. Without 
 passing on the general merits of the question, I have 
 no doubt there is a class of weak pupils in the 
 schools, who are overworked. Nor do I see that it 
 is possible to give them complete relief, so long as 
 they remain in the schools. It is too much to de- 
 mand that the majority shall wait their motions. In 
 the field of morals, I believe the strong should bear 
 
306 mrlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 the infirmities of the weak; but to introduce the 
 precept here, and rigidly to insist upon it, would 
 almost involve the loss of civilization. 
 
 In conclusion, let me remark again, that all 
 inquiries in the field I have skirted must be strictly 
 inductive. General impressions and undigested facts 
 are of small value. I would suggest whether this 
 Association could not perform a valuable service by 
 instituting some inquiries into the vital condition of 
 the public schools. Could not a circular containing 
 appropriate inquiries be sent to the more experi- 
 enced teachers within the territory covered by the 
 Association, calling upon them for their facts -and 
 conclusions ? Or, would it not be well to set on foot 
 in the same territory a scheme for registering the 
 vital phenomena of the schools % At one time I had 
 thought of submitting such a circular, and urging 
 the Association to commit itself to the enterprise ; but 
 concluded merely to suggest the matter and let it 
 go. It seems to me, however, that some facts could 
 be drawn out, which, digested by some competent 
 person or persons, would be of considerable value in 
 determining this vexed question. Of course, either 
 undertaking would involve trouble and labor, but 
 the results would more than compensate for both. 
 The physical life is the basis of all life ; and if it be 
 
Teachers' :^ssocialion. 207 
 
 true that, as a people, we are falling off in phys- 
 ical power, we may be sure that something worse 
 will follow, unless the process of deterioration is 
 checked. 
 
 WORDS CORRECTLY SPOKEN. 
 
 BY ELECT M. AVERT, CLEVELAND. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 I am well aware that there is a class of some 
 numerical importance who claim that there is no need 
 of exercising any considerable care in the choice of 
 words we use. "One understands what another 
 means and that' s all that' s necessary. " The fact that 
 a majority of our lawsuits arise from a failure clearly 
 to understand the meaning of words used, shows 
 that the statement is not true. But were it true, we 
 should waste no time upon it here, where we shaL 
 all agree that it is the duty of every educated person 
 to say what he has to say in clear and orderly 
 language. 
 
 In such a day as this, when loyalty to the mother 
 tongue is outraged at every turn, in the store and on 
 
308 J\fort?i-Eastern Ohio 
 
 the street, in the pulpit and at the bar, in the busy 
 marts of trade or in the boudoir of beauty and of 
 fashion, everywhere the same ; when the father says,- 
 "I done it," and the doting mother begins " Please 
 excuse " with a small jp and misspells many a word ; 
 when the preacher says either for either, and perhaps 
 more than one of us habitually says learn for teach, 
 it is time to ask if something cannot be done to stop 
 this mutilation of the otherwise fair inheritance of 
 so many English generation s. ' ' Haven' t efforts been 
 made?" Certainly. Book after book has been 
 written, printed and widely circulated ; speech after 
 speech has been made and oft repeated ; argument 
 and ridicule have been used, but to no great purpose. 
 The evil is uncured and scarcely checked. Why ? 
 Because this matter of "Good English" is an art 
 and not a science, a thing of habit and not of theory, 
 a question of practice rather than one of preaching. 
 That this is true, the great success of our language 
 lessons goes to show. If I have a correct notion of 
 that system, it is based upon the idea of good habits 
 of speech formed and fixed by daily practice. The 
 costly experiment of half a century's trial shows 
 that the study which claims to be the art Of lan- 
 guage, but which is merely its science, canpot give 
 the results which we are now beginning to realize 
 
Teachers' Association. 209 
 
 from our simple language lessons. We did well 
 when we gave them an honored place in our schools ; 
 we shall do better, I think, when we go further and 
 place them upon the higher seat made vacant by the 
 banishment of formal grammar from our grammar 
 schools to the last two years of the high school 
 course. It will not now be denied that I have a 
 tolerably high idea of the value of these lessons. 
 Nevertheless, it seems to me that they are deficient 
 in several respects bearing upon correctly spoken 
 words. We have, in this Association, heard much 
 of words correctly spelled ; but little of words cor- 
 rectly spoken. To this subject I wish to call your 
 attention. 
 
 The first point is pronunciation. I fear that few 
 of us have a realizing sense «f what great sinners 
 we are in this respect. It is not unkind to say that 
 in this we are much worse than our eastern brethren. 
 Our western speech is so full of ill-pronounced words 
 that it might be truly said of us that there is none 
 good, no, not one. Those of us who are of western 
 birth and education, may find excuse in lack of 
 opportunity and in the fact that this verbal miasm is 
 inseparable from the new soil upon which we grew. 
 But those among us who were reared in more favored 
 lands and have not held fast the faith, can plead no 
 
 14 
 
310 J\forlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 such excuse. Our fallen brother of eastern birth 
 can have no just complaint if as he passes by, the 
 rest of us gather up our robes and say, "We are 
 holier than thou." A few illustrations will make 
 my meaning plainer than much generalization. 
 
 How many of us have suspected that abdo'men 
 is a better word than ab'domen, or that we need 
 apparatus rather than apparatus? How often the 
 equilibrium of an equation is destroyed by calling 
 it an equazMm, or the truncation of a cone marred 
 by calling the frustum Sifrustrum! Why should 
 we say algebra for algebra ? Why should we wear 
 brogans' when bro'gans are as cheap and so much 
 better % As vaga'ries they are bad ; as va'garies they 
 are worse. There is truth and philosophy in the 
 declaration that "Tl^ babes should crip instead of 
 creep, seven days of the wick instead of week, in 
 homes where cricic is said, for creek." The family 
 hearth — give it in sound, as well as in truth, all of 
 the heart and less of the earth. We are taught that 
 forgery is a crime and forgers, criminals ; they are 
 bad in more ways than one. 
 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 Were shaped the anchors of our hope. 
 
 There is another word which, from long association, 
 is fairly redolent of the milliners' and dressmakers' 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 311 
 
 establishments where many of our fair sisters, them- 
 selves truly ex'quisite, find things that are perfectly 
 exquisite, regardless of the important truth that 
 it is requisite that exquisite be accented on the 
 first syllable, like perquisite. Too many of us, as 
 ' teachers and as persons of professed culture, fail to 
 make the proper distinction between the sounds of 
 the verb rise and the noun rise, two distinct words 
 which have a common orthography. I doubt not 
 that Charles Sumner, Colonel Higginson, and men of 
 their culture, read the Rise of the Dutch Republic, 
 and that Sir Parvenu and Lady Shoddy, if they ever 
 read such works at all, by themselves or with the 
 help of some modern Silas Wegg, waded through 
 the pages of the Rize^of the Dutch Republic. 
 
 These illustrations have been suflBciently multi- 
 plied to make plain my meaning, and here I would 
 stop were it not for a single class of words which 
 suffer continually at our hands, and whoSe mispro- 
 nunciation by us forms the distinctive badge of our 
 ' ' fresh-water ' ' schools and colleges. They are words 
 like bath, path, calf, half and can't, which being 
 entitled to the Italian sound of a are flattened to the 
 short sound. The chief difficulty here lies in the 
 fact that, among us, he who insists upon a correct 
 pronunciation of these words is subjected to a charge 
 
213 'North-EasUrn OUo 
 
 or suspicion of afltectation. This is unpleasant, 
 although it be well known that the charge or suspi- 
 cion comes from those whose judgment in the matter 
 is worthless. The authority in such cases is usage 
 undoubtedly, but it is the usage of cultured men 
 and women. If Greorge William Curtis says calf- 
 and path, and George Francis Train says calf and 
 path, the affectation lies with the latter, though he 
 be supported by all the butchers and canal-drivers 
 of Christendom. AflFectation is, in itself, an error, 
 and never on the side of truth. A strictly honest 
 man in Wall street, a patriot statesman in Congress, 
 or a Christian sailor in a heathen land, may be a 
 rarity but not an affectation. There is in nature such 
 a thing as an ant, but, my dear friend, it is not your 
 father's sister, unless' there has been a case of the 
 survival of the fittest more remarkable than any of 
 which Charles Darwin ever dreamed. With us, 
 another difficulty is that even when willing and anx- 
 ious to speak these words correctly, one is thrown 
 entirely upon one' s own resources. That person is 
 rowing against the current ; this requires effort, and 
 few of us are over-fond of hard work. It will, per- 
 haps, be proper to suggest in this place that I fully 
 realize that it is easier to preach than to practice. 
 This realization prompts me to say that these remarks 
 
Teachers' Association. 313 
 
 are offered, not as a model of Words Correctly 8po- 
 Icen, but as a contribution to the end that you may 
 teach better than I was taught. 
 
 Allied to this matter of correct pronunciation, is 
 the one of distinct articulation. I know of no schools 
 where the articulation of pupils is better than in our 
 own ; yet how far short of satisfactory progress we 
 have fallen, they best understand who best know 
 the schools. "Articulation is effected by the action of 
 the lips, tongue, palate and jaws. In order that artic- 
 ulation may be perfect, there must be a prompt, neat 
 and easy action of these organs. When* they move 
 feebly or clumsily, the articulation is indistinct or 
 mumbling." This prompt, neat and easy action of 
 the organs can be secured only by systematic prac- 
 tice. Many of you well remember the practice upon 
 "Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle-sifter," 
 and that other equally famous : 
 
 He thrusts his fists against the posts, 
 And still insists he sees the ghosts. 
 
 I think that in doing away so largely with these good 
 old-fashioned drills, we have done away with a very ' 
 essential element in securing words correctly spoken. 
 Few of our classes and not all of our teachers can 
 read a paragraph without mumbling some of the 
 
214 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 words; the very mention of "the orphan's tears" 
 is made ludicrously suggestive of bovine sorrow, 
 while those beautiful lines, 
 
 One sweetly solemn thought 
 Comes to me o'er and o'er, 
 
 are made to read, 
 
 One sweetly solemn thought 
 Come stew me o'er and o'er. 
 
 Another point is the selection of words themselves. 
 We should first learn to distinguish between real 
 and spurious words. By spurious words, I mean 
 such things as "resurrect," so often used as a verb. 
 We should be very careful not to pass unnoticed any 
 of the numerous malformations which arise from a 
 false inflection of about a dozen verbs, of which lie, 
 lay, sit, set and do may serve as examples. And 
 finally, we should practice and preach the choice of 
 words of Anglo-Saxon derivation rather than those 
 of Latin origin ; of short and common words rather 
 than of long and uncommon ones. There are few 
 sights more sorry than that of a person trying to 
 cover poverty of thought with luxuriance of ver- 
 biage. This was the weakness of a man whom I 
 knew, who declared that a certain proposed railway 
 would never pay expenses because when built, it 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 315 
 
 would not have a termini at either end. As a general 
 thing, a beginning is better than a commencement, a 
 house is better than an edifice, and even legs (when 
 legs are meant) are far better than an equal number 
 of limbs. We all know that one of the greatest 
 merits of our English translation of the Bible is the 
 abundant use of the Anglo-Saxon. Recall to mind 
 that song of David, so full of joy and of beauty: 
 " The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want. He 
 maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth 
 me beside the still waters." And while your soul is 
 yet full, listen : ' ' Jehovah is my pastor ; I shall not 
 be indigent. He constraineth me to recline in verdant 
 fields ; he conducteth me in proximity to the un- 
 rippled liquidities ;" a paraphrase, the good intent 
 of which is all that saves it from blasphemy. 
 
 This matter of correctly spoken words, be it re- 
 membered, is a matter of habit, and some habits are 
 formed in very early life, and are very difficult to 
 remove. This is especially true of habits of speech. 
 Dean Alford well says : "Never talk, never allow to 
 be talked to children, the contemptible nonsense 
 which is so often the staple of nursery conversation." 
 He would not have " Georgy porgy ! ride in coachy 
 poachy !" A child learns to talk by imitating the 
 sounds it hears, and it must be as easy for it to learn 
 
216 J^oriJi-Eastern OMo 
 
 that one of its playthings most highly prized is a 
 foot, as to learn that it is a "footsy-tootsy." The 
 effort may be hard for the young mother, but it will 
 be better for the child, so if opportunity ever offers, 
 please remember the Dean' s advice and do what you 
 can to make less the labors of those who come after 
 you here. Dickens, in "Little Dorrit," says that 
 Mrs. Plornish and the other residents of Bleeding 
 Heart Yard, constructed sentences for the poor 
 Italian, "by way of teaching him the language in 
 its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to 
 Captain Cook, or bj^ Friday to Robinson Crusoe." 
 But this nursery nonsense, though analogous, is 
 worse. It is the fountain far up the mountain side, 
 into which the hunter's heedless hand has cast the 
 crushed adder, little thinking that its venom ming- 
 ling with the waters that leap from rock to rock are 
 bearing death to his loved ones who drink from the 
 quiet stream that flows through the fields in the 
 valley far below. This it is that often renders of so 
 little avail the efforts of our young teachers — women 
 great of soul and pure of heart — that binds in ice 
 their warmest plans and chills the fervor of their 
 philanthropic zeal. 
 
 At present, most of us are responsible for the words 
 of children only after they have begun to attend 
 
Teachers' Association. 217 
 
 school, but from that point there is a growing re- 
 sponsibility in the matter. Hence it is especially 
 important that as teachers we give these matters a 
 portion of our study, for if the blind lead the blind, 
 both fall into the ditch. Every teacher should own 
 or have easy access to such books as Gould's "Good 
 English," White's "Words and their Uses," Dean 
 Trench's " Study of Words," and habitually carry in 
 his most convenient pocket that little work entitled 
 "Three Thousand Words often Mispronounced." 
 They should arrange for mutual and friendly criticism 
 among themselves, turning their conversation to the 
 topics of language, treating them in a familiar and 
 agreeable way, and thus correct many an "inaccuracy 
 of diction or of pronunciation of which they might 
 have remained unconscious but for an interchange of 
 views in such companionship. In this way we may 
 do much for one another by a fellowship of loyalty 
 to the language." When in college, a half-dozen 
 of us students boarding at the same place agreed to 
 pay a fine of five cents for each verbal inaccuracy, 
 detected. Our treasurer was soon the only one who 
 had any money, and all that he had belonged to the 
 society. The currency then was much inflated, but 
 we found it prudent to reduce the fine to one cent ; 
 no matter what we did with the money. I got good 
 from that society and to-day belong to a somewhat 
 
318 J\fort7i-Easiern Ohio 
 
 similar one, with membership limited to two. I 
 recommend the idea of the society, either of them, 
 to you. 
 
 In the lower grades, a teacher can do no better work 
 than this for which I plead. If I had two teachers, 
 one of whom sent forth scholars who used the lan- 
 guage with easy accuracy, even if they were deficient 
 in history and geography, the other of whom sent 
 forth scholars who could handle fractions and dates 
 with a dexterity like that with which a carpenter 
 handles his tools, yet wading in an endless cesspool 
 of slovenly English, I should give the praise of 
 superiority to the former. I would have every teacher 
 in every grade hang over her school room door, in 
 imagination at least, the enticing sign, "Pure Eng- 
 lish Used here. ' ' I know that Richard G-rant White 
 admits that verbal criticism is not in the highest 
 realm of literature ; that there is a power of expres- 
 sion so cultivated that Professor Huxley calls it 
 "sensual caterwauling." " I do not mean," as Prof. 
 Reed says, ' ' that we are to sacrifice the naturalness 
 of speech to a perpetual pedantry ; that we should 
 be ambitious of being such rigid purists as to break 
 the liberty and spirit of a living language by the 
 weight of too much authority ; that we should fetter 
 the easy grace of colloquial speech with sad for- 
 mality. But there may be something more of heed in 
 
Teachers' Association. 319 
 
 our use of language than we do pay to it, without 
 running into anything so odious as pedantry. ' ' With 
 this same clear teacher, I would caution you against 
 the "error of looking upon this whole subject as a 
 mere matter of rhetoric and of grammar, a superficial 
 study of style, and therefore having claim upon the 
 rhetorician rather than on the man, on art rather 
 than on humanity." With him, I would have you 
 remember that " speech, even more than reason, dis- 
 tinguishes man from the brute, and that the two 
 powers in their mysterious union lift him out of bar- 
 barism. Whatever it may be, whether the rude and 
 imperfect speech of the savage, articulate words 
 with no help of written language, or whether it be 
 the copious and refined language of civilized nations, 
 there is, all the earth over, the duty of loyalty, 
 thoughtful loyalty, if possible, to the mother tongue." 
 In conclusion, I would appeal to your faithfulness 
 to our national characteristics. Our degree of cul- 
 ture is quickly, largely and generally measured by 
 the language that we use. Slovenly sentences are as 
 triily indicative of slovenly ideas as profane words 
 are of a corrupted heart. There may be a more than 
 metaphorical truth in the declaration, ' ' By thy words 
 thou shalt be judged." 
 
320 J^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 THE CHARGE OP INFLEXIBILITY OF THE 
 GRADED SCHOOL SYSTEM CONSIDERED. 
 
 BY E. E. SPAirLDI]Sr&, PAINESVILLE. 
 
 "Establish Thou the work of our hands upon us ; 
 Yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it." 
 
 Thus prayed King David, one of the most remark- 
 able men named in any history, sacred or profane. 
 He filled positions of all grades of honor, and with 
 an ability which has sent his name down to us 
 through the vicissitudes and revolutions of nearly 
 thirty centuries ; he was a shepherd ; a messenger ; 
 a singer — probably a choir leader ; a poet ; a fight- 
 ing man, and a renowned monarch in Israel. 
 
 His courage was signal ; out of the paw of the 
 lion and the bear, he delivered the lamb of his 
 father' s flock ; his prowess was remarkable ; of this 
 the result of his little unpleasantness with the Philis- 
 tine giant furnishes abundant proof ; and it is worth 
 remarking as we pass, that he is the first person 
 recorded as having used the slung shot. 
 
 But it is not related of him, however, that he was 
 ever a school teacher., or a school superintendent ; 
 and yet, it is easy to imagine him as having filled 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 231 
 
 both positions, while the failure of the record in this 
 important particular is easily accounted for, on the 
 theory of \h.% 'proverMal carelessness of Mstorians. 
 
 I can even suppose that he may have established a 
 system of graded schools, and, undoubtedly, trials 
 and obstacles beset and opposed him as they do us 
 to-day. Enemies without assailed and condemned 
 his best matured plans ; complained of the cost of 
 his works, and magnified the defects of his system. 
 Malcontents within the circle of the profession pro- 
 posed hard conundrums and exposed the faulty 
 working of his machinery. 
 
 l^evertheless, he was firm in the belief that he had 
 done a good work, and with complacent satisfaction, 
 he may then have uttered the above prayer. What 
 more natural supposition, in the absence of authen- 
 tic records ? 
 
 There was human nature in him, and there is 
 human nature in most men. 
 
 When we have done any work of importance, we 
 view it complacently, and in spirit, if not in words, 
 we pray the prayer of the old Mrig. We build a 
 machine, patent an invention, put a theory on its 
 legs, and the satisfaction in our achievement blinds 
 our eyes to any defects in the working or results. So 
 absorbed are we in the machinery, in the nice 
 arrangement of springs, of pulleys, of weights, that 
 
232 J\forl?i-Eastern Ohio 
 
 we utterly forget to examine the product ; and not 
 until some vigorous unbeliever disturbs our compla- 
 cent meditations, do we realize that the machine is 
 not an end, but a means. 
 
 May not this remark apply, with force, to us who 
 are interested in graded schools % Are we not, in 
 many instances, so given to the machines themselves, 
 that -vye are running, that we forget to study the re- 
 sults? forget that they are not an end? Are the 
 results of the system such as we are justified in ex- 
 pecting, when we consider the labor and the treasure 
 that have been bestowed upon it ? If not, then there 
 must be fault, somewhere. What is it ? Where ? 
 How remedied ? 
 
 True, many of the complaints against our schools 
 have not so much as a shadow for a foundation, 
 and the basis of ' others vanishes at the touch of 
 investigation. 
 
 The complaint is common, is chronic, that the 
 results of the present system of graded schools, are 
 by no means commensurate with the increased and 
 increasing cost of maintaining them, and so there is 
 wide-spread clamor for the reduction of expense by 
 decapitating the system. The malcontents would 
 take away our high schools. 
 
 It is said that the men who come up from the hot- 
 beds of the present system, cannot be compared to 
 
Teachers' Association. 223 
 
 those who were reared by the cpen air culture of 
 the country school of forty years ago. Possibly 
 true ! But they who make this statement would 
 estimate the value of the forest rather by the excep- 
 tional prominence of single trees, than by the general 
 stateliness and fair proportions of all. 
 
 School systems cannot pat brains into empty 
 skulls, nor can lack of system, or advantages, or 
 culture, wholly repress or stifle the natural aspira- 
 tions of the noble soul ; else where had been our 
 lamented Lincoln, and numbers of others, whose 
 whole course of school was covered by a few short 
 months % But no reflecting mind can deny that that 
 plan which opens the doors of the schools regularly 
 for ten months in the year, which aims to secure and 
 retain competent, faithful teachers skilled in their 
 profession, which classes pupils according to capacity 
 and attainment, and which requires all of a given 
 stage of advancement to use the same books, and to 
 do similar work, is infinitely better than the hap- 
 hazard, hit-or-miss system which " in our fathers' 
 days was best." 
 
 But I do not wish to be understood to sneer at that 
 system ; I honor it for the good it did ; and I rever- 
 ence the noble men that it gave the world ; but he 
 who would^ prefer it to the present, would throw 
 
234 ?\forth-Eastern OMo 
 
 away his wife's sewing machine and cooking stove, 
 and send her back to the needle, the fire-place and 
 the pot-hooks and trammels of fifty years gone by. 
 
 Some man of considerable present note has said 
 that the educational institutions of the country have 
 produced no man of mark since 1854. He probably 
 graduated about that time himself. If his remarks 
 were true — which is denied — it may be said that 
 twenty years, under ordinary circumstances, is a 
 very brief time in which to acquire fame. Of past 
 systems, as of our childhood, we are likely to forget 
 the defects and disappointments, and remember only 
 that which is lovely. 
 
 But are there no well founded complaints against 
 our graded schools ? Do they accomplish so much 
 more than their opponents admit and all that their 
 admirers claim ? Doubtful. 
 
 Passing many questions that have been raised, 
 and on which the limits of such a paper forbid us to 
 speak, I desire to notice what may be termed a 
 lacTc of JtexiMlity in the system. 
 
 The critics say that our schools are an educa- 
 tional treadmill ; that the child, once in them, is 
 compelled to make so many turns, and withal, (and 
 most important,) to keep step with his fellows. 
 Woe ! to the luckless wight, they say, who halts, or 
 
Teachers' Association. 325 
 
 limps, or misses his step. Dire punishments and 
 degradations are sure to follow ; having completed 
 the course, however, he is turned out, much as the 
 convict is discharged, when his sentence is served 
 out. 
 
 In the substance of this objection, I fear there is 
 too much truth. What shall we say ? What say 
 of all reasonable criticisms and objections ? Let us 
 admit them. Truth cannot permanently suffer in 
 any controversy. "The eternal years of God are 
 hers." Let us admit such criticism and objec- 
 tion, and then strive for improvement and reform. 
 Idly to sit by, and praise what has been done, is not 
 wise. God tolerates no such helpers in his works, 
 and education is his work in a special sense. He 
 overthrows and removes every agency when its 
 purpose is accomplished — cuts down the tree that 
 cumbers the ground to make room for that which is 
 fresh, vital and aspiring. 
 
 The objection referred to above, stated in another 
 way, is this : It is supposed that a number of chil- 
 dren of minimum school age may be taken, put into 
 the same class, subjected to the same drill, and 
 ultimately graduated, having attained a similar 
 proficiency. 
 
 So, indeed, they might be, had some theorist., 
 
 15 
 
226 ?{orlh-MasUrn Ohio 
 
 instead of Infinite Wisdom, planned the world. 
 Unfortunately for such a theory of education, God 
 has not created any two beings on exactly the same 
 model. One is blessed with quickness of percep- 
 tion, another with deftness of hand, a third with 
 physical endurance; and so, undoubtedly we err, 
 when weX^ttempt one school system for all. 
 I do not, however, say that any school or system 
 of schools is organized on a plan quite so unyielding 
 as that above suggested ; but I do mean that, in, 
 very many cases, the tendency is to force uniformity 
 where nature meant diversity. 
 
 Adherence to the mechanism of our system has 
 been the means — has been ? nay, it is the means 
 of driving from our schools many who especially 
 need their culture and discipline. The dull of per- 
 ception, those whose mental processes are sluggish — 
 those who, through poverty, are kept away a part 
 of the time, find at best a poor place in our system, 
 and they fall out and are lost to all our influences. 
 Christ came "but to the lost sheep?'' "They that 
 are- whole need not a physician." 
 
 Our scheme proceeds quite too much upon the 
 assumption that there are no natural or accidental 
 differences among pupils equal in age. The differ- 
 ences that we recognize, practically, are ambition, 
 
Teachers' Association. 337 
 
 faithfulness, and the like. We drill a given class 
 for a specified time upon a set portion of the work, 
 then apply our tests, and from the results proceed 
 to separate the sheep from the goats. Such a process 
 applied for a length of time, if only there be pupils 
 enough subject to it, can hardly fail to produce 
 showy schools — good ones, if you please ; just as, 
 by ransacking Europe and Asia, by bribery, by 
 kidnapping, by force, paying attention only to 
 height and physique, Frederick William, of Prus- 
 sia, was able to gather a regiment of giants whose 
 average height was from seven to nine feet. As well 
 might we suppose that the parading of this regiment 
 would occasion in other soldiers of the army an 
 increase of stature, as to suppose that such schools 
 will enhance or increase the intellectual powers of 
 the less gifted pupils ; the eflfect is the opposite. 
 They exclaim, " Such knowledge is too wonderful 
 for me ; it is high ; I cannot attain unto it." 
 
 Such schools, I believe, fail of their true object ; 
 they are not a means, but an end. 
 
 The true object of the American schools should 
 be, I think, the laying of the foundation of a true 
 American citizenship, and to this end it should seek 
 to develop what is purest, noblest, and best in every 
 pupil ; to stimulate to active exercise those cLualities 
 
228 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 and capabilities which shall make him, in his 
 generation, most valuable to the community and 
 the country. 
 
 I do not mean that there should be no common 
 ground for education. The fundamentals should be 
 the same for all, and a reasonable proficiency in 
 them exacted ; but we should not be too exacting in 
 our requirements, nor put into the foundations that 
 which is more suitable for the superstructure. 
 
 Kow, the objection of inflexibility comes not from 
 those who grumble at the expense ; they, indeed, do 
 not know that it exists ; it comes from the friends of 
 educational progress ; from intelligent and careful 
 observation. 
 
 What can be done to remove the objection ? It 
 has been suggested — and the plan is gaining 
 adherents — that our class intervals should be 
 made less ; that, instead of a year, the interval 
 should not be more than three or six months, and 
 that promotions should take place, or there should 
 be a re-classification, at the end of these periods. I 
 need not rehearse the advantages claimed for this 
 plan. Sufiice it, that its originators see, or think 
 they see, in it, a panacea for every ill of the graded 
 schools. 
 
 It seems to me, however, that the same objections, 
 
Teachers' Association. 239 
 
 though possibly in a less degree, lie against this 
 plan as against the old. The causes of the unequal 
 advancement of pupils of the same age are mainly 
 the natural difference to which reference has been 
 made, and not to accidental ones. Consult your 
 own experience. Why does your class in arithmetic, 
 or in grammar, exhibit such discrepancy of attain- 
 ment \ Is it not from difference in natural ability, 
 keenness of perception, aptitude for the study, etc., 
 rather than from irregular or inconstant attendance % 
 Now, would re-classing more frequently obviate 
 these main difficulties ? If, indeed, we should thus 
 overcome some of the minor difficulties, should we 
 not add others equally or more potent, by removing 
 some of the. powerful influences that by another plan 
 we can call to our aid \ 
 
 One of the great levers with which we work, 
 although it may be unconsciously in many cases, is 
 what the French call esprit du corps ; we may call 
 it class-spirit. While original classes are kept 
 together we get the full force of it, and it is a power 
 which every careful observer of schools knows well 
 how to estimate. Break the classes at the end of 
 three months, or a year — ^the oftener the worse — and 
 this powerful aid is wholly lost. The trouble is not 
 that a degraded pupil must review old ground ; it is 
 
230 J\forth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 that his class associations are broken, and that, 
 hereafter, he must associate with those who, up to 
 this time, have been regarded as his inferiors. 
 
 Would I never then degrade a pupil who falls 
 below the standard ? I might do so. If a pupil fail 
 through idleness, shiftlessness, or other similar 
 cause, down he should go, and justly. : If he fail 
 because nature has not endowed him with intellect- 
 ual gifts so lavishly as she has his class-mates, why, 
 I think we do great wrong to degrade him. The 
 great differences in pupils, I repeat, exist in nature, 
 and cannot be gotten over nor — nnder ; by frequent 
 re-classifications we shall but aggravate the evil we 
 seek to obviate, and the advantage gained by requir- 
 ing a dull pupil to go again over the ground once 
 traversed by his class, is oftentimes more fancied 
 than real, and is offset by disadvantages of a serious 
 character. 
 
 But what of the effect upon others by thus 
 degrading a pupil? I know that the famous or 
 infamous Jeffrey once told a horse-thief, on whom 
 he was about to pass sentence of death, that he hung 
 him, not to prevent Mm from stealing horses, but 
 that, through his punishment, otlier men might be 
 deterred from the crime ; and I know that a similar 
 reason is offered for breaking classes, and for 
 
Teachers' Associaiion. 331 
 
 degrading pupils. But those whom such consider- 
 ations influence, are, as a general thing, wide awake 
 already, sufficiently excited by the ambition to 
 maintain a good rank. When to the fear of possible 
 failure, is added the certain shame of degradation, 
 in case of failure, we stimulate them too much, and 
 give good cause for the complaint that we tax, them 
 too heavily. Besides, those whom we ought to reach 
 and to elevate, nine times in ten, are least likely to 
 be reached by this means. 
 
 As hanging for horse-stealing is now done away 
 with, and with no bad results, so let us hope, that 
 the time will ere long come when the crime of being 
 weak intellectually will not be so severely dealt with 
 as to result in depriving these unfortunates of all 
 school privileges. 
 
 If inflexibility then is a crying evil in our system, 
 and if frequent re-classification works as much harm 
 as good, some other remedy must be sought ; and if 
 the great differences between pupils are natural 
 rather than accidental, it would seem best to seek a 
 remedy which is conformable to nature. Instead of 
 forcing uniformity where she has made diversity, 
 let us be content to follow where she leads, rather 
 than strive to force her into. paths which she does 
 not choose. 
 
23^ 'NorlJi-EasUrn OMo 
 
 Now, could we not reach the end we seek, in some 
 such way as this ? 
 
 Of those not cLuick in a given branch — grammar, 
 for instance — suppose we require less in that branch, 
 and more, that is, a higher per cent, in some other 
 study for which they have a natural aptitude. For 
 a certain part of a given class, suppose the standard 
 in grammar be fifty, in arithmetic seventy-five, and 
 ninety in geography ; for another portion, fifty in 
 geography, seventy- five in grammar, ninety in arith- 
 metic, etc. ; further, might not some of the pupils — 
 those whose attendance must be inconstant or irreg- 
 ular, drop some one study, as grammar, altogether ? 
 provid'ed, that they devote all their time to the 
 others ? and provided also that the teacher be sole 
 judge as to the necessity of such omissions ? 
 
 Still further ; might not the more brilliant pupils 
 take an additional study, either anticipating the 
 future course, or supplementary to those already 
 pursued ? 
 
 In this way we might make the minimum work 
 consist of two, and the maximum of four studies, 
 reading, writing, spelling and general exercises, 
 should, besides, be required of all. 
 
 By some such plan it seems to me we should fol- 
 low nature ; we should keep original classes together 
 
Teachers' lAssociation. 233 
 
 far better by this plan than by the present plan, and 
 so secure what now we so largely lose the benefit of — 
 the class spirit. Many a one whom now no fear of 
 degradation can stimulate, rather than be known as 
 a pupil competent to carry but two studies, would 
 redouble his eftbrts, would become constant and regu- 
 lar in his attendance, and would work at home and 
 at odd times to maintain a good standing. The dull 
 would not be driven to despair by fear of degrada- 
 tion, the brilliant would find fullest play for all their 
 mental activities, and a harmony and enthusiasm 
 would result, such as has not been known. 
 
 And yet', I am not certain that this would be a 
 universal panacea for schoolmasters. Of one thing, 
 I am, however, tolerably sure ; if such a plan were 
 generally adopted and practiced, the charge of main- 
 taining an inflexible system could not be laid to our 
 charge. There would still be ignorant, careless and 
 vicious parents, who would, as now, be largely repre- 
 sented in our schools by children equally ignorant, 
 careless and vicious. Other means must, if possible, 
 reach tJiem. They must not be allowed to stay the 
 wheels of progress, but means must be devised for 
 their uplifting and reclamation. 
 
 From what I have said you cannot understand 
 me, in any sense, as joining with those who cry out 
 against our graded school system. 
 
334 7{orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 To me the wonder is that it has done so much 
 and so well. Thirty years ago the system in Ohio 
 was unknown ; to-day, it challenges the admiration 
 of the world. I wonder that its faults are so few and 
 so insignificant. 
 
 All honor to those noble men of prudent foresight, 
 of philanthropic purpose, of devoted and unselfish 
 lives, who, putting their hands, their heads and their 
 Tiearts into the work, reared for us a structure so 
 graceful, so harmonious in proportion, and withal so 
 productive in grand results. The criticism that we 
 hear, the disaflfection that we see, are not the har- 
 bingers of failure or overthrow ; they will but 
 stimulate the friends of education throughout our 
 commonwealth to renewed zeal and carefulness. 
 Faults will be eliminated ; the wrong will be righted, 
 and educational privileges and systems will be placed 
 on higher and yet higher grounds for public useful- 
 ness, to do a work for the future of which their 
 founders never dreamed ; and the educators of com- 
 ing generations shall be able, with sublime confidence 
 to pray 
 
 "Establish Thou the work of our hands upon us ; 
 Yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it." 
 
Teachers' slssocialion. 335 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 BY I. M. CLEMENS, WOOSTEE. 
 
 SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 In the January number of the Ohio Educational 
 MordTily, the following remarks are made by the 
 editor : " Twenty years ago a frequent topic of dis- 
 cussion among teachers was the claim to be admitted 
 among the learned professions. That so little of this 
 is heard at the present day, shows what a great, real 
 advance has been made in the respectability of the 
 profession. Teachers do not now think of preferring 
 a claim of that kind, because they know that the 
 standing of the profession is established. This has 
 not been done by any act of recognition on the part 
 of others, but rather by the general increase of the 
 intelligence and education of teachers themselves. 
 The respectability of a profession depends for the 
 most part upon the worthiness of its individual 
 members. It depends also, in a great measure, upon 
 whether its object is to meet the nobler or the meaner 
 wants of man. It depends in a less degree, upon 
 the amount of energy, knowledge, and skill, required 
 in its practice." 
 
 The prudent mariner, though he may be sailing 
 under a clear sky and before a tavorable wind, does 
 
236 J\forih-Easiern Ohio 
 
 not fail to consult his compass frequently and to take 
 note of his bearings that he may know whether his 
 good ship is making headway toward the port for 
 which she set out, or whether she is wandering far 
 out of her course, liable to be dashed to pieces on 
 hidden rocks and reefs. 
 
 The wise general makes frequent reviews of his 
 army, that he may know whether his soldiers are 
 thoroughly drilled and equipped, ready to obey 
 every word of command, and fully prepared to do 
 successful battle in the cause for which they fight. 
 
 The sagacious merchant takes a yearly inventory 
 of his stock, and balances his accounts, that he may 
 know whether his business is moving on a reliable 
 basis, or whether it is leading him into embarrass- 
 ment and bankruptcy. 
 
 It seems to me that it would be well for us, 
 engaged as we are, in an all-important enterprise, to 
 examine, at least as often as once in twenty years, 
 the position we occupy, that we may know whether 
 we are indeed making real advances, and are on the 
 highway to success, about to triumph over every 
 diificulty, and to accomplish results, for which the 
 world will be the better. 
 
 That teaching should stand side by side with the 
 "three learned professions," law, medicine, and 
 
Teacher s' Association. 337 
 
 theology, no one will deny. That it does not, must 
 be evident, I think, to the most casual observer ; and 
 that it never can under existing circumstances, every 
 thoughtful teacher will concede. 
 
 As the training of boys and girls to become up- 
 right, loyal citizens, is of more importance than the 
 knowledge and practice of the law, the teacher's 
 calling is higher, nobler, better than the lawyer' s. 
 He who teaches youth the way to secure perfect 
 physical development and health which will insure 
 a vigorous manhood, and a " green old age," labors 
 for a worthier purpose than he who attempts to 
 relieve us of sufferings incurred by the continual 
 violation of the laws of our being. So, too, he who 
 guides the young mind and heart aright, that it may 
 not pursue the ways of wickedness, is at least brother 
 to him who strives to reclaim the sin-burdened and 
 fallen. Ours is, indeed, an exalted, if not ' ' a learned 
 profession," for its aims are the very highest and 
 the best. Its objects are pre-eminently to meet the 
 nobler wants of man. We need have little concern 
 as to the respectability — the rank of our profession. 
 As the dearest, the most sacred interests of society 
 are wrapped up in it, the time must come, if it is 
 not already here, when teaching will be recognized 
 as a learned profession. 
 
338 JYorth^Eastern OTiio 
 
 In the qaotation I have made, it is truly said that 
 the respectability of a profession depends for the 
 most part upon the worthiness of its individual mem- 
 bers. To be a worthy member of any profession, 
 one must possess the character, knowledge and skill 
 necessary to put into successful practice what he 
 professes. To be a worthy teacher, then, one must 
 have, not only a good moral character, as the law 
 requires, and a fair knowledge of what is to be 
 taught, but he must be familiar with the best methods 
 of instruction, and know how to use them. 
 
 As to "moral character," I believe the mass 
 of those entitled to the name of teacher are above 
 reproach, notwithstanding the assertion, that as 
 many dishonest persons are to be found among 
 teachers, as are to be found in the ranks of any other 
 profession. Open immorality on the part of a 
 teacher is not countenanced, so far as I know, in any 
 community, and the teacher like the clergyman, if 
 found unqualified in this respect, is soon relieved of 
 his charge, as he ought to be. There is, however, 
 another character that every worthy teacher must 
 possess. He must possess a professional character, 
 a character that will distinguish him from the mere 
 pretender, and the novice ; one that will give him 
 influence not only with those he teaches, but with 
 
Teachers' lAssocialion. 339 
 
 the community in which he labors, and that will give 
 him caste, if yon please, with the members of the 
 other professions. This character is not inherited. 
 It is acquired. Men may be born poets, but they 
 are not born teachers. There is a science and an art 
 in education, and we become proficient in the applica- 
 tion of them just as we do in any other case, by 
 study and practice ; and hence those only who have 
 acquired a professional education, either in profes- 
 sional institutions, or by study and practice in the 
 school room, can be worthy members of the 
 profession, and help to give it respectability. 
 
 Mere scholarship will never make a teacher, and 
 yet this cannot be neglected to any great degree. One 
 may be familiar with the subject matter of a profes- 
 sion, and still not know how to use his knowledge to 
 advantage to others, but he who is ignorant of the 
 subject matter has nothing to use, and therefore 
 methods are not only useless to him, but impossible 
 of application. 
 
 In this connection let me refer to some statistics to 
 be found in the last report of our State Commissioner 
 of Common Schools. 
 
 In that report you will find that the number of 
 persons who applied to county boards of examiners 
 for teachers' certificates was twenty -nine thousand 
 
240 J^forlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 and thirty-one. Of this large number only five hun- 
 dred and eighty-one received certificates of the first 
 grade — that is for lisventy-four months — while eight 
 thousand, eight hundred and sixty-four received 
 certificates of the fourth or lowest grade — that is 
 for six months — and eight thousand, five hundred 
 and twenty were rejected. So far as reported, eight 
 hundred and fifty-six applied to local boards, and 
 of these one hundred and seven failed in examina- 
 tion. If we add to these statements the fact that 
 many local boards in the smaller towns and vil- 
 lages, and in some larger towns also, do not require 
 as "much of applicants even as county boards do, 
 we have the status of a majority of the teachers 
 outside of our large cities, so far as scholarship is 
 concerned. These figures indicate that a very large 
 number of our teachers not only lack scholarship, 
 but that they are inexperienced and without pro- 
 fessional training. It is indeed fortunate for our 
 school system, and our profession, that this state of 
 things does not exist to any great extent in the 
 cities and largest towns. How can the respectabil- 
 ity of a profession be sustained with such an army 
 of unprofessional and incompetent members in its 
 ranks ? 
 
 What confidence could we place in a court of 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 341 
 
 justice where judge and advocates were not only 
 inexperienced, but without a knowledge of the law 
 and its rules of application? What prospect of 
 recovery from disease could any one have in the 
 hands of an ignorant and unskilled physician? 
 What unblushing presumption then in those who 
 have neither scholarship nor skill to attempt to 
 teach the youth of the state ! 
 
 But this is not the only class of teachers who 
 drag down the respectability of the profession. 
 
 There are many whose scholarship is good, who 
 enter the ranks of teachers temporarily ; who make 
 teaching a mere stepping-stone to something bet- 
 ter, to something in which there is more money 
 and more honor. They have some other occupation 
 in view as a permanent business, and naturally give 
 their minds to that, and pay little attention- to their 
 teaching, except so much as may be absolutely 
 needed to do the immediate duties of the school 
 room. 
 
 The young student leaves his class to teach, that 
 he may secure the means of completing his collegiate 
 education. The young lawyer becomes a teacher 
 only to accumulate money enough to meet his ex- 
 penses while he is working up a practice. The 
 young lady teaches, because forsooth she can do 
 
 1 6 
 
243 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 nothing else, while she is waiting for something 
 better— "a better half." 
 
 Such eflforts to help themselves may indeed be 
 commendable, but what of the influence of such 
 teachers on our schools ? 
 
 These teachers make little if any attempt at pro- 
 fessional improvement. They do not make, the 
 science and art of education a study, and hence their 
 teaching is mechanical and unfruitful of good results. 
 They have no enthusiasm in their .work and can beget 
 none in their pupils, and their school rooms exhibit 
 one continued round of dull toil, calculated not to 
 inspire and develop, but to dwarf the intellect and 
 blunt the sensibilities. Such persons are, mere 
 hangers on, mere camp-followers of the great army 
 of true teachers, whose highest aim and delight are to 
 train up the boys and girls entrusted to their care to be 
 noble men and women — men and women thoroughly 
 imbued with the principles and spirit of justice, 
 goodness and truth, men and women whose souls 
 shall always be full of the desire to elevate and refine 
 mankind, rather than to be seekers after fame, or 
 mere money-getters. 
 
 He is an unworthy teacher who teaches only for 
 the money that is in it ; and of those who enter the 
 profession temporarily a large majority act on this 
 principle. 
 
Teachers' Association. 243 
 
 The report tq which I have referred shows that 
 seven thousand eight hundred and eleven applicants 
 for certificates to teach were under twenty years of 
 age. Here, again the respectability of the profession 
 suffers. When the. blind lead the blind both are 
 liable to fall into the ditch. 
 
 Is the science and art of teaching so simple, so 
 easily understood, and so readily applied, that any 
 stripling of a boy, whose mind is as yet quite un- 
 developed, and whose habits of thought, and study, 
 of feeling and action, are still unformed, can teach 
 aright? Can the girl of sixteen be entrusted with 
 the education of children withoutrisk % Such teachers 
 and those who would employ them do not consider 
 the nature of the material on which they are to work. 
 They do not realize that a single misstep in the early 
 school life of a child may jeopardize its interests for 
 time and eternity. Men guard their material interests 
 with far more care than they do the education of 
 their children! Fathers do not commit their finan- 
 cial affairs to the boys, nor do mothers leave the 
 management of the household to the girls, and yet 
 it is commonly thought that any one who can read 
 and write is capable of teaching the lower grades of 
 schools. Never was a more mistaken and mischiev- 
 ous idea entertained. It is, however, an encouraging 
 
344 North-Eastern Ohio 
 
 sign of the times, that good teaching in primary 
 schools is beginning to be appreciated. Here the very 
 best teachers are needed, for here the foundation 
 for future culture must be laid, if laid at all. 
 
 The unsatisfactory results that have come from 
 the work done by the three classes of teachers to 
 which I have referred, have, to some extent, brought 
 discredit upon the profession, and have called forth 
 adverse criticisms on our school system from friend 
 and foe. 
 
 But the faults of our schools are not all to be traced 
 to this source. There are many defects in the sys- 
 tem itself, and the very best of teachers are often 
 unable to avoid the consequent evil results. 
 
 A late writer says, " the primal, and naturally the 
 greatest evil of our educational system is, that it is 
 too systematic altogether, that it works in grooves 
 that teachers are mere automatic machines, and 
 that their highest ambition seems to be to cram as 
 much learning into a child in as short a space of 
 time as possible — that teachers work for high per 
 cents rather than for true culture, and that teachers 
 and pupils both lose their individuality, under the 
 grinding force of inexorable rules." It is charged 
 that the common branches are neglected, so as to 
 gain time to give pupils a smattering of the higher 
 
Teachers' Association. 345 
 
 branches, which are practically of no use to them — 
 that most children leave our schools little better pre- 
 pared to engage in any of the active occupations of 
 life, than if they had received no education at all. 
 These and many other defects call loudly for reform, 
 but of all the problems that have engaged the atten- 
 tion of the ablest educators for the last quarter of a 
 century, not one is more important, and not one pre- 
 sents greater obstacles to its solution than that of 
 furnishing all of our schools with competent, faith- 
 ful, trained teachers. 
 
 Some years ago it was thought that normal 
 schools could and would be established in sufficient 
 numbers to meet the case. But as yet they have 
 fallen far short, notwithstanding private enterprise 
 has come to the aid of the state. 
 
 General Eaton states in one of his reports that 
 according to estimates made by prominent educat- 
 ors, over one hundred thousand new teachers are 
 demanded each year for our schools, and that the 
 normal schools of the country can graduate only 
 about one-twenty-fifth of this number. He says 
 further, that though we take into the account the 
 circumstances that may modify these figures, the 
 truth of the utter and appalling inadequacy of 
 normal training remains." 
 
346 J^orth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 It is no doubt true, that a very small per cent, 
 perhaps not even per ten cent., of all of our teachers 
 have received any professional training, and probably 
 not five per cent, have taken a regular course at a 
 normal school. 
 
 Much good has been accomplished by state, county 
 and local institutes ; but these do not reach even a 
 majority of the teachers, and it generally happens 
 that the very ones who need instruction most are 
 the ones not found in attendance on these institutes. 
 
 Educational lectures, papers and books are doing 
 good service, also ; but the instrumentality which 
 seems now to be productive of the best results, is the 
 system of supervision adopted in the cities and large 
 towns. 
 
 But with all these appliances the fact still staj-es 
 us in the face, that there is not yet provided any 
 adequate remedy for the evil. 
 
 How then are qual ified teachers to be obtained ? 
 Superintendent Bateman, of Illinois, says, ' ' by 
 simply demanding them." When our people de- 
 mand competent teachers for their schools, pay them 
 adequate salaries, and give greater permanency to 
 the position, they will readily find them ; but as long 
 as incompetent teachers are employed because they 
 can be had for a few dollars a month, not many will 
 
Teachers' Association. 247 
 
 feel inclined to spend time and money in acquiring 
 a professional education, and then be obliged to come 
 in competition with those who have not invested a 
 single dollar, nor an hour of time, in preparation for 
 the position they sfeek. 
 
 Many of the states have already enacted compul- 
 sory educational laws. The idea of compulsory 
 education has, I believe, been borrowed from Ger- 
 many. Its effects there seem to have been so 
 beneficial that some of our best men have urged its 
 adoption here. The German system is a complete 
 one, and it is strange that the most important part 
 of that system should be practically discarded in 
 applying it in this country. If we were to attempt 
 the English system of high farming, and omit in 
 practice one of its essential features — that of the 
 adequate fertilization of the soil — we should certainly 
 fail. But this is just what those states are doing that 
 have adopted compulsory education, and have made 
 no provision for a full supply of trained teachers. 
 
 Germany demands that all of her children shall 
 be educated, but she does not stop here, she provides 
 teachers competent to instruct them. Teachers' semi- 
 naries, or normal schools are established, where the 
 "discipline is said to be strict, the fare simple, and 
 the work hard." In these schools a part of the time 
 
348 ?(orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 » is devoted to the study of the art and science of 
 teaching and managing classes and schools, and part 
 to teaching in the practice schools. After giving 
 those who wish to become teachers every opportunity 
 of acquiring the knowledge and practice that all 
 teachers should have, the state prohibits any one 
 found unqualified from teaching either a public or 
 a private school, and to test his fitness a commission 
 of experts is appointed to conduct his examination. 
 Those who complete the three years' course of the 
 seminaries and pass the required examination receive 
 one of the three grades of certificates granted, and 
 are permitted to becotne assistant teachers. 
 
 After serving three years as an assistant, the 
 teacher may present himself for another examination, 
 which turns mainly on professional skill. If this 
 examination is satisfactory, he receives a certificate 
 of qualification for a full-class town elemental teacher ; 
 if the result is only "good," the certificate limits his 
 chance to a village school. But this is not all: 
 After obtaining the mastership of a school the young 
 teacher must extend his professional knowledge by 
 taking part in one or more of the conferences held 
 in every province, for the discussion of professional 
 questions, and the keeping up of a professional 
 attachment. In addition to this each teacher is 
 
Teachers' Dissociation. 349 
 
 required to become a member of one of their "book 
 societies," and by the payment of a small sum to 
 aid in procuring educational journals, and other 
 educational literature by which professional im- 
 provement may be extended and continued. 
 
 Thus Germany not only requires a professional 
 training of those who would be teachers, before they 
 enter upon their work, but she forbids their rusting 
 out in their work, by requiring them to continue a 
 regular course of professional advancement. When 
 our states shall add this feature of the German sys- 
 tem to that now introduced, then and not till then 
 will all of our schools be supplied with trained 
 teachers. 
 
 The state must demand that those who teach shall 
 be competent, and she must close her school house 
 doors against all who are found incompetent, and in 
 doing this she will act wisely, for it were far better 
 that our children' should be at home than at school 
 under incompetent teachers. 
 
 At the twenty-second annual meeting of the Ohio 
 State Teachers' Association, the president, after re- 
 ferring to the efforts that had been made by the 
 teachers of the state to secure normal schools and 
 county supervision, said : 
 
 What ten years more wiU bring forth in the his- 
 tory of education in Ohio, no teacher, not even a 
 
250 Norik-Eastem Ohio 
 
 veteran in the service, would dare attempt to foretell. 
 Bat the progress of the past surely leaves us not 
 hopeless and faithless, but full of encouragement. 
 It will do us no harm to indulge, at least, in the 
 vision of not less than six well-established, munifi- 
 cently endowed state normal schools, with two 
 thousand young men and women in course of training 
 for the profession — one master mind controlling the 
 educational affairs of each county, with the township, 
 and not the sub-district as the unit in the grand sys- 
 tem of the common schools of the state. 
 
 Five of these ten years are nearly past, and the 
 vision of normal schools and county supervision 
 then indulged, is still a vision a;nd likely to remain 
 so f6r the five years to come. 
 
 While we are looking forward with hopefulness 
 and faith for a better state of things, let us not forget 
 to use to the best possible advantage the means we 
 have, for elevating our profession and benefiting our 
 schools. Let us not think that because the state is 
 doing little for us we can do nothing for ourselves. 
 Whatever of real advancement has been made in the 
 ast twenty years, has been the result of the indi- 
 vidual and the united efforts of the teachers of the 
 state. 
 
 Still greater advancement shall be made if only 
 we are true to ourselves and to the cause in which 
 we labor. 
 
Teachers' :>lssocialion. 251 
 
 A little more than five years ago some of the 
 leading spirits of North-Eastern Ohio, fully apprecia- 
 ting the great need of better qualified teachers, and 
 recognizing the lack of means to this end, conceived 
 the idea of organizing an association for the profes- 
 sional improvement of the teachers of this part of 
 the state. The North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Asso- 
 ciation is the realization of that idea. With its 
 history most of you are familiar. Its influence has 
 been felt far beyond the counties included in its 
 bounds, and so good has this influence been that 
 similar organizations have been formed in other sec- 
 tions of the state. No one instrumentality has done 
 so much to improve the condition of the schools of 
 North-Eastern-Ohio, as has this Association, and to 
 those who organized it and kept it alive and vigorous 
 in its infancy, there is due the gratitude of every 
 friend of the good cause of education ; and to him who 
 during these five years was its honored president; 
 I am sure our hearts are all full of thankfulness, for 
 to him, more, perhaps, than to auy one else is the 
 Association indebted for the excellent influence it has 
 exerted, and for the prominent position it now 
 occupies. 
 
 To be the successor of one so distinguished and 
 so esteemed — to be the second president of this 
 
352 T^orlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Association — is an honor which I think I fully 
 appreciate, and one for which I now tender to you 
 my sincerest thanks. 
 
 THE HIGH SCHOOL AND THE COLLEGE. 
 
 BY PROF. C. H. PENFIELD, CLEVELAND. 
 
 Two systems of education have grown up in our 
 country side by side, each with its own ideal, its own 
 independent life, its own law of growth and develop- 
 ment, and each has struck its roots wide and deep 
 in our soil. The one an indigenous growth formed 
 and fashioned to meet the wants of the masses, the 
 other the growth of centuries, shaped to mould and 
 develop the minds of the thinking and governing 
 classes. 
 
 What shall be the attitude of these two systems 
 toward each other? Shall it be at best but an armed 
 neutrality, or shall it be one of mutual confidence 
 and harmonious co-operation? In discussing this 
 question, I shall for the sake of perspicuity, arrange 
 my thoughts under three heads, and inquire : First, 
 into the importance of a vital connection and harmo- 
 nious co-operation between the two systems of 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 253 
 
 education ; Second, The feasibility of such connec- 
 tion and steps already taken in this direction ; and 
 Lastly, inquire, What still remains to be done. 
 
 And first, at the outset, it will be germane to my 
 purpose to inquire whether both systems are destined 
 to survive, or whether according to the law of the 
 fittest, the one is fated to pale before the light of the 
 other. That our common school system has a noble 
 work before it, we as common school men, all feel in 
 our inmost hearts, if we are the right men in the right 
 place. But what of the college system? Has it 
 served its day and generation, and is it nearly ready 
 to be gathered to its fathers % 
 
 I do not propose here to give an extended argu- 
 ment for the value Of a classical education. The 
 stock arguments in its favor you have undoubtedly 
 heard again and again. 
 
 Nor is it necessary for my purpose, for, observe, 
 I have not to prove the superiority of a classical 
 education over other modes, but simply to show 
 that it has its roots in such wants of the American 
 mind as insure it a perennial growth and develop- 
 ment among us. 
 
 I have assumed by the term classical education 
 what you at once grant, that the college system 
 differs from the common school system mainly in 
 
254 J\forth-Easiern. Ohio 
 
 the amount of Latin and Greek required in the 
 former. 
 
 Far back in the history of. England— when thp 
 Saxons yielded to the Normans, and their language 
 was restricted to the field of home. and daily wants, 
 and the Norman French became the language of 
 court and society — a habit became impressed upon 
 the English speaking people, a habit fostered for 
 centuries by their learned men, (learned only 
 through the medium of the Latin and Greek,) a 
 habit which has ever grown with their growth and 
 strengthened with their strength — a habit, do I say ? 
 Nay, the power to draw at will from the resources 
 of the Latin and Greek, to meet the growing wants 
 of English and American thought. The foundation 
 of our language, as we all know, is Saxon, the lan- 
 guage of home, and every day life and wants. But 
 the moment the child or the man rises above these 
 into the realm of thought, of feeling, of criticism, of 
 conscious mental activity, he breathes the atmos- 
 phere of the Greek and Latin. For example, I 
 open at random to a page of Kames' "Elements of 
 Criticism." I read, marking the Greek and Latin 
 words. "The eifect (Latin) of magnifying (Latin) or 
 lessening objects (Latin) by means of comparison 
 (Latin) is so familiar (Latin) that no philosopher 
 
Teachers'^ :^ssodaUon. 355 
 
 (Greek) has thought of searching for a cause (Latin). 
 The obscurity (Latin) of the subject (Latin) may 
 possibly (Latin) have contributed (Latin) to this 
 silence (Latin). Or, by count on a page, about one 
 word in four, or omitting mere connectives and 
 modifiers, nine-tenths of the leading words are 
 Latin or Greek. 
 
 Another thing, too, strikes us, on examination. 
 Passing by the unusual and technical . terms of our 
 author, and taking on the page such ordinary words 
 as influence (a flowing into), object (a something 
 cast before us), conceive, difference, etc. , we observe 
 that the simple, ordinary use of the word in Eng- 
 lish, is the secondary or figurative use in Latin or 
 Greek. 
 
 We are using figures and tropes every day of 
 our lives, and talking and reasoning in metaphors. 
 We are well aware in the study of poetry, or all 
 consciously metaphorical language, how vastly we 
 are aided in our appreciation and enjoyment of its 
 beauties by a clear understanding of its tropes ; so 
 in the daily language of thought and feeling, the 
 mere English scholar, however thoroughly trained, 
 has no eyes for the metaphor concealed in his, words. 
 He never can appreciate the nice adaptation and fit- 
 ness of words— can never attain to keen appreciation 
 
256 J^orih-Easlern Ohio 
 
 of their delicate shades of meaaing-^in fine, can 
 never know the language of his daily life, until he 
 has met and become familiar with the faces of his 
 daily friends in their own old home. _ 
 
 I have said this power of adaptation has grown 
 with the growth of the English language. It has 
 become a law of growth., and in this respect, as far 
 as I know, the English language stands alone. 
 
 The German, with its marvelous power of com- 
 position and inflection, can form a hendecasyllable, 
 if needed to express a new thought ; but the moment 
 a man with us has made a new discovery, from a new 
 planet to a superior hair oil — the moment he has 
 separated two thoughts which had been before con- 
 founded — ^the moment he has attained a clearer 
 conception and wants a new word to clothe his 
 discovery, or conception — that moment he starts for 
 the old storehouse, and however much he may have 
 decried the study of the dead languages ; if he is so 
 unfortunate as to find himself ignorant of them, is 
 obliged to appeal to the classical scholar to stand 
 godfather to the new-born thought ! That I do not 
 exaggerate, let me ask any one of you to open any 
 recent work in science or art, and see if four-fifths, 
 if not nine-tenths, of all the terms peculiar to that 
 science or art, are not recent importations from the 
 Latin and Greek. 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 357 
 
 Our forefathers in clearing the ground and paving 
 the way to these mines of wealth, were building 
 wiser than they knew. They have imposed much 
 toil upon us by making us almost a trilingual peo- 
 ple, but they have given to the English a delicacy, 
 a flexibility, a wealth that no other language can 
 boast of. 
 
 To what classes then, and how strongly does the 
 classic course appeal. And First, let me say in 
 general to all to whom a nice appreciation and 
 extensive acquaintance with their own language is 
 important — to all those whose business is .mainly 
 with words — whose occupation it is to grasp the 
 exact thought embodied in the language of others, 
 and present it clearly and attractively — to ministers 
 — -to teachers — to lawyers — to public speakers. 
 Second. To all who aspire to appreciate and keenly 
 enjoy the beauties of our own literature. Third. 
 To all who wish to write that which our children 
 will be glad to read. Fourth. To all who expect to 
 enrich the world with new thoughts or clearer 
 expressions — and it appeals to these classes strongly 
 enough to fill our colleges with continually grow- 
 ing numbers. Whatever backward eddies there 
 may have been from time to time, there never has 
 been a time when college education has been more 
 
 17 
 
258 ■Korlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 popular, or its claims more widely appreciated than 
 now. 
 
 It seems to me safe, then, to conclude that hofh 
 are bound to survive, and that each meets a felt 
 want of the American people. 
 
 A certain well known preacher of from ten to fifty 
 years ago, used to lay out his sermons somehow 
 thus: First. Show what my text does not mean. 
 Second. Show what it does ! You will excuse me, if 
 I follow something of the same plan, and before 
 proceeding ' to inquire what are the advantages of 
 cordial co-operation between the two systems, give 
 a slight sketch of the disadvantages of oppositive 
 or even of entire indifference toward or disregard 
 of each other. 
 
 The first consequence of mere indifference is such 
 a mal- adjustment of the courses to each other, as 
 renders them mutually exclusive. It becomes neces- 
 sary for the parent or guardian to choose almost at 
 the outset of education which course his child shall 
 pursue, and should changed circumstances or altered 
 views permit or demand an exchange in the courses, 
 so different have been the studies pursued, that 
 months and years of additional time and expense 
 will be required. This will of course be felt more 
 by those of moderate or scanty means than by the 
 
Teachers' Association. 259 
 
 wealthy, and in addition to the difficulties already 
 felt in acquiring a longer course of education, will 
 turn away many of this class. If you add to this 
 the constant influence of the teacher hostile to the 
 college course, many more will be turned back ; and 
 who are those thus turned back ? They are in gen- 
 eral the children of those not themselves educated, 
 while those who are educated and cultivated feel 
 that whatever else they bequeath their children, a 
 thorough education is a sine qua non. There springs 
 up then a system of caste education, not in all cases 
 with the rich on the one hand and the poor on the 
 other, though corresponding very nearly to these 
 divisions — but between the children of culture, of 
 refinement and opportunity on the one hand, and 
 on the other, those whose brains must be coined as 
 soon as possible into necessary raiment, and bread 
 and butter for themselves and their parents. And 
 this line of division works mischievously for the 
 interests of both parties —on the children of the rich, 
 in being taken from the side of the children of the 
 poor, where each is made to feel every day, some- 
 times by bitter experience, that it is only brains that 
 tell ; on the children of the poor and the whole 
 common school system, by the stamp of inferiority 
 thus fixed on it by its own friends. No greater evil 
 
360 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 can befall American education than to have the two 
 systems become class schools, nor can the enemies 
 of the common school system invoke a greater evil 
 on it than to fix upon it the plebeian stamp of the 
 school of the day laborer. 
 
 Another evil is the growth of private and so-called 
 select schools, sapping the very vitals of the common 
 school by drawing off its most prominent and 
 promising scholars. 
 
 I think it may safely be said that the success and 
 patronage of select schools in any place, is in the 
 hands of the board of instruction of that place, 
 and depends almost entirely on the degree in 
 which the public schools meet the felt want of 
 the community. 
 
 I have already, by portraying their opposites, 
 indicated many of the advantages to flow from a 
 vital connection and harmonious co-operation of 
 the two systems — such a union as shall bring the 
 two in line, so that they form parts of one connected 
 whole. First, we have no loss of time. A valuable, 
 self-consistent thing has been acquired wherever one 
 stops^but more of this hereafter. Second, the 
 children of the rich and poor are placed side by side 
 and taught each to respect whatever of true man- 
 hood there is in the other. We retain too, the 
 
Teachers' Association. 261 
 
 quickening influence of the best trained and most 
 developed minds among our scholars. Next, instead 
 of the distrust, the jealousy and quasi hostility of 
 those educated in colleges and universities, w^e 
 have their strong support and hearty co-operation. 
 Wherever they are the most fully united, a mighty 
 influence cannot but be felt, stimulating, quickening, 
 vivifying every department of the common schools 
 even to the remotest rural district, and this in turn 
 will react upon the college and university, and the 
 teachers of each and all be stimulated to better and 
 more successful effort. Nor should the direct influ- 
 ence upon the scholar himself be overlooked. The 
 motto, ^^ ne plus uUra,'^ '■'■there is nothing woore 
 beyond,'''' was the rain of Spain, and it will be the 
 ruin of any system of education that adopts it. The 
 teacher who trains his scholar to believe him the 
 embodiment of all human wisdom and acquirement, 
 and that his institute embraces all of human thought 
 or discovery it is at all worth while to study, is 
 derelict to his high dxity, and guilty of a crime 
 second only to him who murders the innocent wards 
 committed to him for protection and training. On 
 the other hand, there is nothing more quickening 
 and stimulating to intellectual growth and activity, 
 than the view of ever growing fields of life and effort, 
 in literature, science and art. 
 
262 Morth-Easlern Ohio 
 
 Bat I was next to speak of the feasibility of 
 a close connection ; and to this point I would 
 especially invite your careful attention. 
 
 My first point is this, that the two systems have 
 already approximated so far as to be nearly identical 
 in aims and modes. 
 
 I have said the college system was fashioned to 
 mould and develop the minds of the thinking and 
 governing classes — to train the mind for accurate, 
 persistent and long sustained activity. 
 
 For this purpose, the so-called disciplinary 
 studies occupied the greater part of the course, 
 with only a brief glance during a portion of the 
 last two years at the progress of science^ and this 
 continued true, to a period within the memory of 
 many of us. Ask the graduate of twenty years' 
 standing, what is the advantage of a college 
 course? he will answer, "the splendid discipline 
 it gave me." Ask the opponent of college education 
 not posted in the present attitude of our colleges, 
 why he objects to them, he will answer, " Too much 
 time on mere discipline f " The argument pro and 
 con turned on the discipline secured. , 
 
 The matter of the colleges if not "discipline first 
 and last," was "discipline first and always, and 
 acquirement last and subordinate." No helpful 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 363 
 
 and suggestive notes were placed in the student's 
 hand — none of our modern appliances oflEered. 
 
 It would seem as though everything that could 
 smooth the way, was grudged, and sometimes as 
 though the way was needlessly obstructed with 
 difficulties, that the scholar might cultivate his 
 strength and ingenuity by working through and out 
 of them. But let any one now visit our" colleges or 
 training schools and he cannot fail to mark an entire 
 change in their tone and spirit. The claims of 
 science for a larger share of attention are heard, 
 and the course in Harvard made elective after the 
 iirst year, to make way for its claims. 
 
 I mention Harvard as the most prominent of our 
 universities, and one of such commanding influence 
 that whatever attitude it assumes, is certain to be 
 adopted sooner or later by the rest. The languages 
 themselves are approached in a more philosophical 
 spirit, as objects of interest in and for themselves. 
 The successful teacher or text-book is constantly 
 calling attention to the life of the languages as 
 developed in their origin, euphonic changes and 
 probable ancient pronunciation — their growth and 
 relation to each other and to the English. 
 
 I hazard nothing by the assertion that the gradu- 
 ate of the classical department of our Cleveland 
 
364 ■ 'NorlTi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 high schools (or of similar courses) has a greater 
 facility in reading the Latin and Greek, and a more 
 intimate and practical kno\jsrledge of all that per- 
 tains to the life of these languages than the average 
 college graduate of twenty years ago. The motto 
 is no longer " discipline first, and acquirment 
 last," but "discipline and acquirement hand in 
 hand^'' — "discipline in and through acquirement." 
 Whatsoever changes have been made in the common 
 schools, have been made in the direction of greater 
 accuracy and thoroughness, and such an enlarge- 
 ment of the course as to include many of the 
 sciences taught in college, and the languages suffi- 
 ciently far in many cases to enter college. Both 
 have heard the voice of the people in their demand 
 for culture and acquirement. If less change has 
 been visible in the common school, it is I think, 
 because the common school being nearer to the 
 people, has first heard their voice ; but the college 
 has heard it too, and both have responded to it. If 
 then these two parties, once so far separated, have 
 become so far reconciled as to sympathize with each 
 other in their spirit and aims, may we not reason- 
 ably hope that whatever minor differences remain in 
 their practical working, will, with patience and wis- 
 dom on both sides, in time, entirely disappear ? 
 
Teachers' Association. 265 
 
 Let us then next inquire — What are the obstacles 
 in the way of co-operation ? First. A real difficulty 
 in the instruction of the Greek. Second. A less 
 difficulty in the teaciiing of the Latin, and one that 
 may be in the main obviated. I have already 
 spoken of the immense importance to any one who 
 would aspire to a clear and definite knowledge of 
 the English language, that he make himself familiar 
 with its sources in the Latin and Greek. 
 
 Let me advance a step farther. I have often 
 advised a young friend who has completed the 
 ordinary text-books in arithmetic to take algebra, 
 if for only one term, rather than spend time on some 
 so called higher arithmetic. His knowledge of 
 arithmetic even, becomes more practical and real 
 by viewing it from the standpoint of a related 
 science. I speak my own experience, and I doubt 
 not that of many before me, when I say, that in my 
 childhood days, my first clear conception of the 
 nature and scope of English grammar was obtained 
 from my first term's study of the Latin. 
 
 We are so constituted that in our habits, in our 
 thoughts, in our language, in everything that per- 
 tains to ourselves, we must get a standpoint outside 
 of ourselves before we can understand and properly 
 appreciate ourselves. 
 
366 mrlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 By handling and shaping z, foreign sentence we se- 
 cure the clearer development to the mind, of the idea 
 of the sentence as a conscious object of thought, and 
 the ability to shape, and fit, and mould it to our wish. 
 
 Add to this that the acquirement of a respectable 
 number of root words in its eifect on a knowledge 
 of the English is no small consideration. So far 
 then from a solitary year spent upon the Latin 
 being lost, I believe that no more profitable thing 
 could be done than to introduce into our grammar 
 schools and make imperative upon all our scholars 
 one year's study of Latin. 
 
 If to this be added the first year in the high 
 school, its value would be more than doubled. If 
 beyond this, the Latin course be made optional, we 
 have taken a long step in the desired direction. We 
 have introduced all the scholars to that which can- 
 not but result in clearer conception and clearer 
 expression. By means of the year gained by begin- 
 ning the Latin in the grammar school, we can vary 
 the Latin of the high school by one year more in 
 science. But above all, we postpone the day of 
 divergence between the two courses. The number 
 of classes is diminished, and the students move side 
 by side through all the grammar and three-fourths 
 of the high school course. 
 
Teachers' Associalion. "^67 
 
 But the real difficulty lies in the Greek. Though 
 its connection with technical terms in science and 
 art is full as great if not greater than the Latin, yet 
 it is more remote from the language of ordinary 
 life, and appeals therefore less strongly to the aver- 
 age scholar. The strangeness of its character and 
 the copiousness of its forms, meeting the student at 
 the outset, render it still less attractive. So much 
 time must be spent on it before it becomes a valu- 
 able acquisition in itself, that few take it up unless 
 with an eye to its further study in college. Its 
 commencement then marks the first point of neces- 
 sary divergence between the courses. 
 
 For these and similar reasons a strong pressure 
 has been brought upon the college men to induce 
 them, First, to remove the Greek from the college 
 course. Second. Failing of this, to confine its study 
 to the college. That the former will be done, I do 
 not believe. Its connection with the Latin as well 
 as with the English, is too vital to render it feasible. 
 The Latin possessing a force and strength of its 
 own, owes and acknowledges its indebtedness to the 
 Greek for all its finish and beauty, while the Greek 
 is an indigenous growth, owing the marvelous full- 
 ness and richness of its efflorescence to no other 
 thing than that selfsame love of the beautiful that 
 
268 JYorih-Eastern OTjio 
 
 placed the Grreek beyond the rest of the world in 
 architecture, painting and sculpture. 
 
 The two with their resemblances and contrasts — 
 one the language of might, of majesty and law, the 
 other of freedom, of versatility and beauty, make 
 such a union of masculine vigor and feminine 
 beauty as cannot well, and I believe will not ever 
 be separated in a liberal course of study. The 
 second alternative, that of confining the Greek to 
 the college, is for the present declined. But if the 
 public school men will meet the college men half 
 way, furnishing the required studies as far and as 
 well as possible, encouraging the young people to 
 aspire to more and continually higher culture, and 
 if both shall continue to move as they have done, 
 in obedience to the call of the people, I believe that 
 before many years are past, one of two things will 
 prove true — either the demand for the Greek will 
 so increase that it shall be seen to have a proper 
 and required place in all our high schools, or it 
 will be remanded to college halls, and the last 
 obstacle be removed to a vital connection and har- 
 monious co-operation between the college and the 
 common school. 
 
 That such a union may soon be formed and 
 forever preserved, is, I doubt not the earnest wish 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 269 
 
 of every one who has at heart the highest and best 
 interests of American education and culture. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OP THE EYE. 
 
 BY A. A. E. TAYLOR, D. D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF WOOSTER UNIVERSITY. 
 
 At a recent meeting of one of our educational 
 associations, a well known and experienced college 
 president emphasized the difficulty he has ever 
 found in teaching his scholars to see aright. He 
 also quoted to the same effect President Barnard, 
 of New York — an eminent authority. Every teacher 
 who himself has accurate observation, must be con- 
 scious of this serious difficulty, and of its hindrance 
 to thorough instruction. And j^et this is strange 
 enough ; for children seem to see everything in the 
 world that is to them so new and so entrancing, and 
 in which their wonder is constantly awakened by 
 the ever-developing visions of knowledge around 
 them. 
 
 Parkman, in one of his interesting histories,* 
 remarks the well known fact that among all savages 
 the powers of perception predominate over those of 
 
 ♦Conspiracy of Pontlac. 
 
370 Morth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 reason and analysis ; but this more especially the 
 case with the Indian. He also says : " Seldom can 
 the white man boast in eqnal measure that subtlety 
 of sense, more akin to the instinct of brutes than to 
 human reason, which reads the. signs of the forest as 
 the scholar reads the printed page. The Indian 
 would look with scorn on those who, buried in 
 useless lore, are blind and deaf to the great world 
 of nature." What is thus natural to the child is 
 developed in the savage by the necessities of the life 
 of the woods and the peculiar dangers of his con- 
 dition. Nature is his only text-book. Is it not a 
 fair question whether the education derived from 
 the study of books does not tend to destroy this 
 dependence of the mind upon the original researches 
 of the eye, and to substitute instead, reliance upon 
 the written authority of others ? And if this ques- 
 tion be answered affirmatively, does it not follow 
 that, to guard his scholar against this danger of 
 vicarious observation becomes the imperative duty 
 of every teacher? It has long ago been remarked 
 that it was not without special intention that man 
 has been granted two eyes and but one tongue. 
 More of seeing than of saying, is one of the secrets 
 of nature's own revealing, on the pathway of 
 knowledge. 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 271 
 
 Shakspeare hints the importance of this acciirate 
 vision when he makes Claudio in "Much Ado 
 Abont Nothing," say, 
 
 Let eyery eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent. 
 
 The Latin quotation is to the same eflfect : '■'■Bene 
 qui distinguit, hene docity He who sees well, 
 instructs well. As education cannot create, but 
 can only discover and bring to light the hidden 
 life, its chief duty would seem to be to teach the 
 art of discovery. It is well known that Plato calls 
 the feeling with which knowledge must begin, 
 wonder, the awakening of the mind to inquiry. 
 And Sir John Herschel admirably characterizes 
 observation as "passive experience" — the transfer 
 of the outer life to the life of the soul. The percep- 
 tion must precede the conception. The amassing of 
 facts by observation is the necessary preparation of 
 material from which to work up conclusions and 
 systems. And it has been generally so conceded 
 ever since Bacon reversed the world's method of 
 reasoning. 
 
 The very use of the word "observe" for 
 "remark," so frequent in all our speech, indi- 
 cates the natural necessity of seeing in order to 
 declaring. One of the distinguishing features of 
 
372 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 this nervous, impatient age is superficiality. "It 
 inclines," as one has pointedly said, "to the 
 superstition that man is able by means of simple 
 intuition to attain a knowledge of the essence of 
 things, and thereby dispense with the trouble of 
 looking and thinking." But it is in vain to try to 
 get behind things into thoughts, without a penetrat- 
 ing gaze that shall ever pierce through the surface 
 to the core. 
 
 How much this perpetual watchfulness, this keen 
 analysis, has availed to originate discovery and 
 advance science in all it branches, may be readily 
 illustrated. Here is a youth whose early days 
 have been passed in wandering among the woods 
 and rocks of his native Cromarty. At the age of 
 twenty he is an humble day-laborer in a quarry, 
 bewailing his hard fate. The quarry lies at the 
 mouth of a river in the remote highlands. One day 
 he discovers a fossil fish of the old red sandstone. 
 A fellow laborer, attracted by his curious interest, 
 tells him of a spo't where lie scattered many such 
 remains of a former world. It is to him a new 
 intellectual birth. He surrenders himself to the 
 fascinating search — he learns to use his eyes — and 
 HiTgh Miller becomes the prince of geologists and 
 the world renowned historian of the Old Red. 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 273 
 
 Sir Roderic Murchison spends seven years of 
 unremitting research among the broken and con- 
 torted beds of that forsaken region in North Wales, 
 on the banks of the Wye, and renders himself 
 forever famous as the discoverer of Silurian system. 
 
 In like manner a certain Frenchman gave himself 
 to the persistent study of the fossil animals in the 
 plaster quarries of Montmartre, lying neglected at 
 the feet of science, in the very gates of Paris, and 
 thus became, as it is claimed, the originator of the 
 true theory of the history of the earth ; building 
 up again out of the fragmentary remains of the 
 sepulchres of the past, its living forms ; and inscrib- 
 ing his name as Baron Cuvier in the list of 
 naturalists, only second to the name of Linnseus. 
 And so in different spheres of science Des Cartes, 
 Leibnitz and Herschel, and many scarcely less 
 notable names have gained undying fame by bringr 
 ing to light, through superior eyes, facts and truths 
 long buried in oblivion. 
 
 There is now a professor in one of our American 
 colleges, who, unless somebody shall lay violent 
 hands upon him to prevent, is likely to discover 
 and announce all the stray planets and asteroids, 
 and other heavenly bodies, now lying loose around 
 (the wide expanse of the heavens. May I quote 
 
 18 
 
,274 J^forth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Euskin to this point? He says, "The truths of 
 nature are one eternal change — one infinite variety. 
 There is no bush on the face of the globe exactly 
 like another bush ; there are no trees in the forest 
 whose boughs bend into the same network ; nor two 
 leaves on the same tree which could not be told, one 
 from the other; nor two waves in the sea exactly 
 alike. And out of this mass of various yet agree- 
 ing beauty, it is by long attention alone that the 
 conception of the constant character — the i^eal 
 form hinted at by all, yet assumed by none — is 
 fixed upon the imagination for its standard of 
 truth." Now, this very Ruskin himself shall also 
 become our example. Hamerton, in that fascinating 
 volume, "The Intellectual Life," has justly said of 
 him, "His peculiar position in literature is due to 
 his being able to see as cultivated artists see. 
 Everything that is best and most original in his 
 writing is invariably either an account of what he 
 has seen, in his own independent inimitable way, or 
 else a criticism of the accurate or defective sight of 
 others." Ruskin' s method, as you well know, con- 
 sists in drawing and taking accurate memoranda of 
 what he desires to know. Some of you will doubt- 
 less remember his admiring reference to the man 
 who could spend an hour in studying the various 
 lines and angles in a pile of ashes. 
 
Teachers' Association. 276 
 
 Madame de Stael, on the contrary, developed 
 another sense, and substituted educated ears for 
 educated eyes. When she had outlined her subject 
 for an essay, she persistently led the learned and 
 brilliant men by whom she was surrounded to con- 
 verse upon the chosen theme and to discuss it 
 together. Meanwhile she stood by, quietly gather- 
 ing hints, which she noted on the margin of her 
 essay, and afterward worked them up together 
 into one harmonious literary production. Thus she 
 substituted genius in constructiveness for fertility 
 of invention. Knowing her method, we are not 
 astounded in hearing this celebrated author of 
 "Corinne" exclaim, in her impetuous way, that she 
 despised civilization because there she knew what 
 everybody was like, and what everybody was going 
 to do; that "there were no surprises in it;" for 
 this illustrates her vast ignorance of civilization ; her 
 lack of interest arising from her want of observa- 
 tion; for nature herself is not fuller of surprises 
 than is civilization. 
 
 Hear sweet Wordsworth sing : 
 
 lilature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her : 'tis her privilege 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 From joy to joy; for she can so inform 
 
•376 ■Norin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed . 
 
 "With lofty thoughts, that neither eril tongues, 
 
 Eash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 
 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 
 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
 
 Is full of blessings. 
 
 And well did Wordsworth know, noted as lie 
 was for his widely extended pedestrian excursions, 
 exploring every hill and vale, and pausing to revel 
 in every landscape among mountains and lakes. 
 Like him too, were Sir Walter Scott amidst his 
 . native hills, and Groethe riding about as if mad, from 
 place to place, to find oat all that nature could 
 show of herself to his eye. The name of Alexander' 
 Humboldt also received its luster from those marvel- 
 ous and indefatigable explorations, in which he 
 found infinitely more than all books could tell him, 
 or than he could tell in all his books. It is in this 
 that Darwin's power resides, and upon it rests his 
 fame. Look at the inimitable sunsets of Turner. 
 You know that he must have studied nature, else he 
 never could have produced such exact and fiery 
 imitations. But when you stand and patiently 
 watch for yourself, the skies on a propitious even- 
 ing, before ,and after sunset, noting the flitting 
 shades of the atmosphere, and the constantly 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 277 
 
 changing outlines and tints of the trooping clouds ; 
 the intervening sky now fading from blue to green, 
 now deepening from green to red, now darkening 
 from crimson to brown — then when you shall have 
 learned to see for yourself, you will not care to visit 
 the galleries, except to admire how well the finite 
 brush can copy the faintest outlying touches of the 
 Infinite hand. 
 
 Or, turning again to literature, "if you read 
 attentively the work of any truly illustrious poet, 
 you will find that the whole of imagery which gives 
 power and splendor to his verse is derived from 
 nature through the senses." Some philosophers 
 have even gone so far as to afiirm that ' ' the entire 
 intellectual life is based ultimately upon remembered 
 physical sensations ; that we have no mental con- 
 ception that is really independent of sensuous 
 experience ; and that the most abstract thought is 
 only removed from sensation by successive processes 
 of substitution." So highly do those who think 
 the deepest, value the power of penetrating sight 
 and other quickened senses. There is indeed what 
 the poet calls, "The harvest of the quiet eye." 
 What wonderful visions are revealed in the human 
 countenance, they little know who have not set 
 themselves with diligence to observe. As Lady 
 
278 Norlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 Macbeth exclaimed to her lord on a certain familiar 
 occasion: "Your face, my thane, is as a book, 
 where men may read strange matters." The ever 
 changing face of man sets forth the life of thought 
 in all its various inner laws and aspects, wherein 
 is reflected all the outer world ; just as the world's 
 actual objects and scenes are reconstructed in the 
 huma,n eye. 
 
 But we have been illustrating, we fear, at too 
 great length only what every teacher, every faithful 
 student knows far too well by personal experience. 
 And the complaint of each one is the old historical 
 refrain, "Oh ! that I could but see as some men see." 
 What criminal ignorance encompasses us all as the 
 sentence of our unpardonable neglect of close, 
 critical, accurate seeing ! 
 
 Now, when we come to the practical and ever 
 recurring question — how shall teachers educate 
 youth that they may be made to see for them- 
 selves ; the general answer must be the response of 
 the painter Opie to the student who inquired with 
 what he mixed his colors, "With brains, sir." 
 And we teachers must follow the example of the 
 celebrated Etty, in the Royal Academy, when a 
 student came asking, "How shall 1 do this, sir?" 
 "Suppose you look," responded Etty. "But I 
 
Teachers' :>issociaiion. 379 
 
 have looked." "Suppose you look again." But 
 we may say, in mentioning details, but without 
 attempting a thorough treatment of the analysis, 
 that it must be the teacher' s persistent effort to train 
 the student to concentrate Ms whole intellectual 
 being upon the subject in hand. Garvey, in his 
 excellent "Manual of Hiiman Culture," assigns 
 two conditions as essential to the cultivation of per- 
 ceptiveness. (1.) Attention, and (2.) Sympathetic 
 emotion. These relate to the mind and the heart. 
 After speaking briefly of these in order, we shall 
 take the liberty of modestly adding a third to com- 
 plete the intellectual analysis, viz : The command 
 of the will, 
 
 1. Attention has been defined as "the adjust- 
 ing of the observer to the object that he may seize 
 it both in its unity and diversity." It is leaving 
 the mind entirely alone with the object. The mind 
 cannot serve two masters ; if it have two masters it 
 will serve neither. The exercise of the faculty of 
 observation in a single thought or thing, is essential 
 to accurate seeing. This requires a concentration of 
 the eyesight of the mind. The eye simply opened 
 without special direction takes in everything within 
 the circle of its vision. Even so the mind opened, 
 wanders over every subject within range, until some 
 
280 J\forlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 /)ne more attractive than the others fixes its thought 
 and binds it to itself. When it sees everything it 
 has only a vague, general vision of anything, and 
 no definite impression remains. But this incessant 
 wandering of the mind is natural, and the power of 
 attention is only gained by long and exacting 
 training. Therefore, to fix the steadfast unflinching 
 mental gaze of the pupil upon the single thought or 
 thing, is to be the first object of the teacher's train- 
 ing. To dissipate distracting thoughts, and hold 
 the mind chained to a solitary subject, requires the 
 exercise of the same power in perfect control by the 
 teacher. No one can teach a child to think, who 
 does not with intense concentration, think also 
 himself. "One thing I do" — this is the law of 
 attention. In teaching my own child geography in 
 an amateur pedagogy, I have experimented by 
 taking a sheet of blank paper and cutting out two 
 spaces just large enough 'to show through them 
 the names of the state and its capital for instance, 
 and then have spread the same over the map, 
 leaving only the names "North Carolina" and 
 "Raleigh;" or "Ohio" and "Columbus" visible; 
 then I have written these names on the blackboard 
 and let the boy write them alone on a blank sheet, 
 and so study them by themselves, as if North 
 
Teachers' M.ssociaUon. 381 
 
 Carolina and Raleigh, or Ohio and Columbus were 
 the only words in the world. One thing learned at 
 a time in this way will lead to many things being 
 learned eventually, and so impressed upon the eye 
 and the mind as to become indelible. 
 
 2. And then besides attention, we must have 
 sympathetic emotion — or the action of the heart as 
 well as of the head, to give double seeing to the 
 eye. The naked fact that impressions are most 
 deeply engraved upon the mind when the feelings 
 have been excited, is one of universal experience. 
 Peril offers perhaps the highest illustration of this 
 truth. The boy never forgets the day when he was 
 chased by the bull. The whole scene — the nature 
 and nearness of the fence of refuge, the pathway 
 along which he flew, that terrible engine of life 
 and death driving on behind, his emotion of terror 
 and relief — all glow with an unfading light in his 
 mind. They were burned in by the intense emotion 
 of the moment. So in a milder experience, the 
 sweet scenes of childhood, some charming spring, 
 some favorite play, some Robinson Crusoe in its 
 first appearance — these are the thoughts and scenes 
 that abide. Now the eye that would learn to see 
 must be taught to love to see, or to see with loving 
 gaze. The lesson that is beaten in with the switch 
 
283 J\forth-Easlern OMo 
 
 will be remembered ; that is the switch especially, 
 will remain vividly fixed upon the memory, and the 
 lesson may steal in along with the terror of the 
 rod. Bat unless the lesson be loved it will sooner 
 be forgotten ; since it is in our better nature to put 
 away from us the things we dislike and those of 
 uncongenial memories. To awaken an interest 
 sympathetic and ardent as may be possible for the 
 object or thought to be seen, is one of the teacher's 
 invaluable methods. It may be curiosity that shall 
 arouse feeling, it may be ambition to excel ; but 
 when aroused the feeling should be turned into a 
 channel of sympathy for subject or object in hand. 
 So will the pupil learn to love seeing for its own 
 sake, and thus only learn to see. 
 
 3. But now about the concentration of the will 
 in the direction of that which is to be observed. It 
 may be thought that this point has been sufficiently 
 covered in the treatment of the feelings ; for we will 
 to do usually what we are taught to love to do. It 
 is true that the will, as well as the mind, is thus 
 seduced by the feelings to close attention to the 
 object. But I would modestly suggest that aside 
 from this, there should be a faithful and zealous 
 attempt upon the part of teachers to instruct and 
 persuade pupils to gain such mastery over their 
 
Teachers' Association. 283 
 
 own wills as may enable them to hold a subject in 
 hand vi et armis. Let the pupils fully understand 
 that they can never perfectly secure the attention of 
 the mind and the sympathy of the feelings, unless 
 they gain control of that will that lies powerful and 
 commanding behind both intellect and sensibility. 
 Let them know that they have a will that is master, 
 in fact, of their other faculties, and that they can 
 never succeed until they master this will for them- 
 selves, and -hold the reins with steady hands. Not 
 referring now to moral questions, but solely to 
 educational interest, I would aver this to be a 
 matter of the highest consequence. He only sees 
 who wills, with all his strength of purpose, to see. 
 He may try to give attention, he may be somewhat 
 interested in the object, but for all that, he will not 
 see deeply into it or know it thoroughly, until he 
 has arisen in majesty and right royally determined 
 and decreed that he will exhaust the seeing of 
 it. Feebleness of will resulting from ignoring its 
 existence as a faculty to be trained just as the rea- 
 soning faculty is trained — ^feebleness of will, is the 
 prevalent secret of shallow scholarship, of superfi- 
 cial sight. To rally the will, to awaken the feelings, 
 to fix the mind — these, then, are the lessons to be 
 practiced in learning to see, in learning to think. 
 
384 Norih-Eastern Ohio 
 
 Now, patient friends, pardon me if I have seemed 
 to speak only familiar and crude words, whose 
 truth your own experience may have taught you 
 far sooner and far better than any second-hand 
 dealer could teach them. Desiring more to give you 
 the sympathy of my obedient presence at your call, 
 than the instruction of a higher knowledge or of a 
 deeper experience, these thoughts are thrown across 
 your path for you to use as you may deem them 
 either weeds or flowers. Accept my congratulations 
 upon the success of your noble Association, my 
 sincere desires for its future prosperity, and my 
 thanks for the privilege of appearing among you as 
 an humble member of that self-sacrificing and 
 devoted fraternity which seeks to confer the intel- 
 lectual power of its own generation upon the young, 
 for use in the generation that is to come. 
 
 CURIOSITY AS A MOTIVE POWER IN 
 
 EDUCATION. * 
 
 BY JOHN BOLTON, CLEVELAND. 
 
 "We have," says Lord Karnes, "daily and 
 constant experience for our authority, that no 
 man ever proceeds to action but by means of some 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 285 
 
 antecedent desire or impulse. So well established 
 is this observation, and so deeply rooted in the 
 mind, that we can scarcely imagine a different 
 system of action. Even a child will say familiarly, 
 'What should make me do this or that, when I 
 have no desire to do it ? ' " The desires are, 
 therefore, the motive powers, the mainsprings of 
 action to the mind. They put the powers of the 
 soul in motion, and without them the world of 
 mind would be one universal scene of stagnation. 
 It is true we have intellect, but intellect is, at best, 
 but the compass that guides and directs ; the desires 
 are the winds that waft. 
 
 Not only is it true that the desires are the main- 
 springs of action, but it is also true, that in mental, 
 moral and physical action, the quality of the action 
 is determined by the desire that prompts it. An 
 action is delightful or irksome, enduring or fitful, 
 noble or ignoble, according to the character of the 
 desire which was its antecedent. While the same 
 action may follow many different desires as motives, 
 I believe it is also true that the action will prove to 
 be of the highest quality when it follows the desire 
 which is its natural and direct antecedent. A virtu- 
 ous action is truly virtuous only when it has been 
 prompted by a love of virtue. An act of patriotism 
 
286 'Norlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 is of highest value, when it proceeds from a genuine 
 love of country. Is it not also true that the act of 
 learning is of highest value when it springs directly 
 from a love of knowledge % It is of this love of 
 knowledge that I wish to speak under the name of 
 curiosity. 
 
 Unfortunately, curiosity has been used in a bad 
 sense, as that feeling which prompts us to pry into 
 the affairs of others about which we should not wish 
 to know ; and as an idle inquisitive temper which 
 renders us burdensome to others. It is from such 
 meanings attached to the word that many persons 
 are apt to shrink from the suggestion of stimulating 
 curiosity, and to feel that children should rather be 
 taught early to suppress so inquisitive a disposition. 
 In another sense, it may refer to those feelings or 
 emotions caused by that which is new to perception, 
 without any reference to the desire to know that 
 which is unknown. In this sense, it is akin to the 
 feelings expressed by wonder, astonishment, awe, 
 and the like, which are generally unattended by 
 desire of any kind. It has, however, in another and 
 higher sense, been recommended to the teacher by 
 one who is entitled to speak with authority, as the 
 "most effectual of all means for securing the im- 
 provement of the mind." "To acquire knowledge 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 387 
 
 or to discover truth," says Dugald Stewart, "is the 
 proper object of curiosity — a principle of action 
 which is coeval with the first operations of the 
 intellect, and which, in most minds, continues 
 through life to have a powerful influence, in one 
 way or another, on the character and conduct." 
 
 It is in this last sense of having truth for its 
 object that I wish to use it. It is peculiarly active 
 in childhood, and is the power which, under the 
 guidance of nature, has done so much for the 
 child during the first few years of its life. It 
 manifests itself in the thousand questions which 
 children ask of those around them ; in the delight 
 with which they look at what is new to them ; and 
 in the eagerness with which they lay hold of and 
 scrutinize whatever they do not understand. No 
 one can witness the restless activity of children in 
 this respect, and not be convinced that they have 
 planted in them this instinct for knowledge for wise 
 purposes, which, if kept alive and directed to proper 
 objects, may become in the hands of the teacher a 
 power of the highest importance in fitting them for 
 the active duties of life. It has been the theme of 
 writers on education, who have recognized its 
 importance, and urged its study by teachers of 
 every grade. Mr. J. M. Wilson, of Rugby, says : 
 " There are mental instincts as well as there are 
 
•^88 Norih-Eastern Ohio 
 
 bodily instincts, * * * But the mental instincts are 
 almost ignored in the art of education. One of 
 these instincts is curiosity. It is a mental phe- 
 nomenon which the skillful master studies, and a 
 power which he turns to account in the education 
 of the boy. It is the one principle which makes 
 self-education possible." Mr. J. D. Philbrick, of 
 Boston, in speaking of the importance of object 
 teaching in exciting curiosity, says : " Perhaps, it 
 would not be extravagant to say, that any method 
 is good or bad just in proportion as it tends to 
 stimulate or repress this principle of action." He 
 further says: "In all the instructions imparted, and 
 in all the studies pursued in our schools, it should 
 be the constant aim of the teacher to awaken, stimu- 
 late and strengthen this curiosity, and to turn it 
 to useful pursuits " Says Archbishop Whately : 
 "Curiosity is as much the mother of attention, as 
 attention is of memory ; therefore the first business 
 of the teacher — first not only in point of time, but of 
 importance — should be to excite, not merely a 
 general curiosity upon the subject of study, but a 
 particular curiosity on particular points of that 
 subject. To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, 
 is to sow a field without plowing it." Locke recog- 
 nizes it as an appetite after knowledge, and as a 
 great instrument nature has provided to remove that 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 289 
 
 ignorance children were born with, and lays down 
 rules for its encouragement. Mr. Stewart, whom I 
 have already quoted, says of its importance : " It is 
 the principle which puts the intellectual faculties in 
 motion, and gives that exercise which is necessary 
 to their development and improvement. I wish to 
 impress on all those who have any connection with 
 the education of youth, the great importance of 
 stimulating curiosity, and of directing it to proper 
 objects as the most effectual of all means for 
 securing the improvement of the mind." 
 
 According to the views thus set forth, the 
 development of the mind is not to be brought 
 about by the exercise of some external force draw- 
 ing out in some indefinable way the dormant powers 
 of the mind ; but this work is mainly accomplished 
 by this actuating principle which, with the fostering 
 care of the true teacher, will push those faculties 
 into a state of healthful activity in due order and 
 proportion. The object of education is to render 
 the child a willing and efficient co-worker in his 
 own improvement — -a zealous and successful seeker 
 after truth. Every step in the work of education 
 should be taken, not so much for the step itself, as 
 for the power developed tending to enable the pupil 
 to take the next step for himself. And, again, it is 
 
 1 9 
 
290 North-Eastern Ohio 
 
 not so much for the knowledge gained by any act of 
 observation, for example, nor, indeed, for the power 
 acquired to observe, as it is for the desire awakened 
 in the mind of the pupil to observe again ; since, 
 without this desire, the knowledge gained will soon 
 be forgotten, and the acquired power soon dis- 
 sipated. Care should in all cases be had, before 
 knowledge is communicated, that a desire for that 
 knowledge be awakened in the pupil, and that it 
 should be imparted in such manner, in such 
 quantity, and at such time, as to leave the desire 
 stronger than it was before, requiring less effort on 
 the part of the teacher to arouse it the second time. 
 The efficiency of the teacher's work does not 
 depend so much upon what has been done for the 
 pupil, as it does upon what he can and will do for 
 himself when left entirely frefe from the prompting 
 influences of the school. If books and apparatus 
 are necessary to the highest success of the school, 
 how much more necessary is it that the pupil have 
 a desire, a purpose to learn? If it is necessary to 
 impart knowledge to him, how much more necessary 
 is it that he should consent to receive it ? 
 
 The full recognition of the importance of curiosity 
 in the teacher' s work would lead to the considera- 
 tion of the importance of a pupil's affection 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 391 
 
 for knowledge — a consideration too frequently left 
 out of the question altogether. It is one thing to 
 study the rose scientifically, and another to be 
 moved by it as an object of beauty ; one thing to 
 know the rose, and another to love it. It is one 
 thing to be able to give all its plant characteristics, 
 and another more important to be made happy by 
 its presence. I imagine that many a scientific 
 botanist is no better than simple Peter Bell, of 
 whom it > was said : 
 
 The primrose by the river's brim, 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 And it was nothing more. 
 
 But in a system of education which makes it a 
 prime object to awaken and sustain curiosity, this 
 affection for natural objects is the very starting 
 point seized upon to raise the emotion which is the 
 essential part of desire ; and the objects and sub- 
 jects for mental activity are so presented as to excite 
 the feeling of wonder or surprise which leads to the 
 desire to know what was before unknown. 
 
 The feeling expressed in the child's address to 
 
 the star, 
 
 Twinkle, twinkle, little star. 
 How I wonder what you are, 
 
293 J\forih-Easlern Ohio 
 
 should be roused and kept alive long before the 
 question is answered scientifically, which would not 
 be long, I imagine, in these days of science made 
 easy; and yet a living, growing wonder in the 
 child's mind would be better than a wondex satisfied 
 with what must, in most cases, be to him a super- 
 ficial answer. Mr. Dugald Stewart very justly 
 disapproves a common practice, "that of communi- 
 cating to children general and superficial views of 
 science and history by means of popular introduc- 
 tions." "In this way," he says, "we rob their 
 future studies of all that interest which can render 
 study agreeable, and reduce the mind in the pursuit 
 of science to the same state of listlessness and lan- 
 guor as when we toil through the pages of a tedious 
 novel, after being made acquainted with the final 
 catastrophe."* It should be more the teacher's 
 
 * Tn the discussion whicli followed the reading of this paper, this pass- 
 age was strongly objected to as being opposed to the introduction of 
 science in schcils, but I fear I was in fault in the brevity and imperfection 
 of my treatment of the subject. Knowledge serves a two-fold purpose ; 
 for information and for discipline. When knowledge is used for disci- 
 pline, we are to withhold much as a prize to be earned by the pupil's 
 exertion. A celebrated philosopher once said: "Did the Almighty, 
 holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left Search after Truth, deign to 
 tender me the one I might prefer, in all humility but without he.'sitation, 
 I should request Search after Truth." This feeling does not belong alone 
 to the philosopher. It is an instinct quite as general and as powerful in 
 the human mind as curiosity itself, and should be so recognized in our 
 sy."tems of education. It will be "bserved that the point of Mr. Stewart's 
 objection is in depriving the pupil of the pleasure of earning the prize, by 
 giving it to him at once without exertions on his part. He would not rob 
 
Teachers' :>lssociation. 293 
 
 work to create an appetite for knowledge than to 
 satiate it. 
 
 It would seem to me that in our judgment of the 
 pupil's progress, we ought to rely less upon that 
 most fallacious of all tests, the results of examina- 
 tions, as expressed in percentage tables, and more 
 upon the pupil's growing interest in studies, and 
 upon his increasing power and willingness to help 
 himself in his work as he advances from grade to 
 grade. If in the higher grades there is a manifest 
 decrease of interest, so that there is greater need of 
 coercive influences to secure the accomplishment of 
 work ; if we find, as a general rule, that our scholars, 
 if left to themselves, would gladly throw their books 
 aside, and give their studies to the winds ; if the 
 graduates of our schools show by their disposition 
 toward learning that they thank their stars that 
 their education is at last finished — I say, if we find 
 as a rule, that all this is true, then there must be 
 something wrong, either in the school work which 
 can produce no better results, or in the doctrine of 
 the existence of curiosity as I have defined it, and 
 
 him of the pleasures of the chase by putting him In possession of the 
 game without the chase. It is not the novel he would withhold, but he 
 would not give the final catastrophe before the reader had followed the 
 train of events in the plot which led to tha* catastrophe. Neither would 
 he deprive the pupil of soientiflc knowledge, but he would not give him 
 the net products of investigation without having him, in part at least, go 
 through the investigation leading to those results. 
 
294 North-Easlern Ohio 
 
 of its susceptibility of improvement ; but let us not 
 as educators throw aside the doctrine because it 
 may be the easier of the two to get rid of. 
 
 In conclusion, if we could, in the language of 
 Bishop Potter, "Infuse into the mind a principle of 
 enduring activity and curiosity, such that it shall 
 ever be 'awake in quest of light, never counting 
 itself to havg apprehended, but pressing forward 
 toward higher truths, and larger knowledge," then 
 we should confidently expect the following results : 
 
 First. Scholars would remain in school for a 
 greater length of time. 
 
 Second. A more extended course of study could 
 be more easily accomplished with less worry, at 
 least, and with less injury to the health of pupils. 
 
 Third. In whatever sphere of life pupils might 
 afterward move, the work of self-education would 
 go on, as leisure and opportunity might afford. 
 
 Fourth. The mind being preoccupied by an 
 abiding interest in the pursuit of knowledge, the 
 ranker growth of habits of vice and immorality, of 
 greed of gain and lust of power, would be excluded, 
 thus securing moral results such as we could not 
 otherwise expect. 
 
Teachers' lAssocialion. 395 
 
 SOME REASONS WHY DRAWING SHOULD 
 BE TAUGHT IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 Although drawing is finding its way into many 
 of our best schools, its entrance has not been undis- 
 puted, nor its stay entirely unmolested. 
 
 This fact, together with the conviction that 
 drawing should find a welcoTne place in all our 
 public schools, constitutes a sufficient reason why 
 the question above announced should be considered 
 by so dignified a body of educators as the North- 
 Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association. 
 
 In order that any new subject shall be introduced 
 into our schools with universal consent, it must 
 satisfy the two classes into which educators may be 
 divided. One class of instructors judges the worth 
 of a study by its practical utility in every day life. 
 If a new study presents itself for admission into 
 our schools, such questions as these are asked : Of 
 what use is it ? Will it enable its possessor to earn 
 money? Can he, by means of it, win his daily 
 bread any easier than at present? Will it give him 
 power or influence in the world ? 
 
396 7(orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Another class of educators considers the disci- 
 plinary uses of a study of more consequence than 
 the knowledge gained. This class would question 
 new candidates for favor thus : Will it strengthen 
 the mind so as to enable it to grapple more readily 
 with the problems of life? Will it increase the 
 power of perception, conception, imagination, judg- 
 ment or reason ? In short, will it assist in advancing 
 man in the scale of human progress ? 
 
 If the subject of drawing be rationally presented 
 to either of these classes of educators, we shall 
 have no fears as to the answer to be received. 
 
 The utilitarian will readily acknowledge that 
 there is no person, whatever his profession, but, at 
 times, has need of drawing to render his ideas more 
 intelligible to others. The necessity of this art to 
 the engineer, architect, carpenter, mason, machinist, 
 engraver, painter, and in fact to every artisan, male 
 or female, who is engaged in the construction of 
 objects combining taste with fitness, or beauty with 
 utility, must be obvious to all. When we still fur- 
 ther consider the scarcity of skilled artisans, and the 
 demand for such, caused by our increase of mechan- 
 ical and manufacturing establishments all over the 
 country, the utilitarian will place drawing and design- 
 ing at the very head of the list of his required studies. 
 
Teachers' Association. 397 
 
 On the other hand the disciplinarian has always 
 regarded drawing as an aid in lifting the mind 
 above the lower forms of enjoyment to those of a 
 more rational character. The practice of drawing, 
 when properly taught, requires the exercise of the 
 higher faculties of the mind, such as the power of 
 imagination, ideality, invention, comparison, judg- 
 ment, etc., etc. "It opens new fields of enjoyment, 
 new powers of comprehension, and a broader basis 
 for a correct understanding and a sound judgment 
 of whatever belongs to human experience." 
 
 With these general remarks let us enter more 
 into details. Let us consider the influence of draw- 
 ing upon the ordinary school work. We believe 
 that teachers themselves, from the fact, no doubt, 
 that their attention has not been called to it, are not 
 fully impressed with the value of drawing in an 
 educational course. They do not seem to under- 
 stand that it is intimately connected with all other 
 studies, and instead of robbing them of precious 
 time, it is sharpening and toning up the faculties 
 for the more ready acquirement of other knowledge. 
 
 Reading is indispensable in our schools, and 
 must be taught. Hence, anything that will hasten 
 the process of teaching reading should be respect- 
 fully considered. Drawing does assist in this 
 
398 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 process. How? In reading we are obliged to 
 name words, whicli are definite forms, at sight. 
 We recognize words by their forms, or shapes. 
 Draiwing trains the eye to distinguish forms. It is 
 the language of form. Therefore it has a direct 
 influence in teaching children to read. 
 
 Until our wise men, who are now discussing the 
 subject, shall produce a reform in spelling, we must 
 continue to teach it as it is, at a great sacrifice of 
 precious time. Children who are trained in draw- 
 ing, learn to spell more rapidly than others, because 
 we remember the spelling of words by their 
 appearances or forms. Good spelling depends 
 much upon a good memory for forms. Memory 
 drawing educates and strengthens the power to 
 recall forms, and thus bears directly upon the 
 teaching of spelling. 
 
 Until we can all be provided with a pocket 
 automatic writing machine, we must continue to 
 teach children to form words with pencil and pen. 
 Drawing is the elder sister of writing, and they 
 mutually aid each other. The same quick eye and 
 the same skillful hand are necessary in both. 
 
 Geography is not only a useful study but a 
 refining one also. Not many of us can travel at 
 will over the face of the fair earth, to observe for 
 
Teachers' :^ssocialion. 299 
 
 ourselves the shapes of continents, islands, seas and 
 gulfs. We must study maps. But experience 
 teaches that gazing at maps only is not the 
 quickest method of fixing their forms in the 
 memory. Next to traveling from place to place 
 and observing their situations, and the courses of 
 rivers, the best thing is to draw maps and locate 
 these places on them. Hence, the best teachers 
 teach geography by means of drawing. 
 
 Drawing assists in the study of arithmetic. It is 
 not only useful as a means of illustration to the eye, 
 but it cultivates the power of concentration which is 
 indispensable in the study of arithmetic. The power 
 of abstraction is the chief mathematical faculty, and 
 probably no school exercise has ever been invented, 
 better calculated to lead the mind away from the 
 concrete to the abstract, than that of inventive 
 drawing and designing. 
 
 In the study of geometry, beginners generally 
 find difficulty in realizing that the lines they see on 
 a flat surface represent anything hut lines. They 
 fail frequently to see that a form or volume is 
 represented. It is not a matter of theory only, but 
 of fact as well, that a training in' drawing assists 
 much in a rapid acquisition of geometry. Greometry 
 is the science of form. Drawing teaches the practi- 
 cal and sensible representation of it. 
 
300 J\forth-Easiern Ohio 
 
 The Latin, the Greek and other languages in 
 which the meaning and relation of words often 
 depend on minute differences in termination or 
 inflection, are much more readily learned by those 
 who have had the eye and attention cultivated by a 
 systematic course in drawing. 
 
 Drawing is the handmaid to all the natural 
 sciences. Botany, physiology, geology, natural 
 history, etc., cannot be pursued in the best way 
 without drawing. The drawing of leaves, stems, 
 fruits, and flowers of plants, the different parts of 
 animals and the human body, serve to fix their 
 forms in the mind better than it is possible to do 
 in any other way. The observation necessary to 
 draw a form serves to place that form in the mind 
 and imagination, while the attempt to represent it 
 by lines and shadows, corrects errors of observation. 
 
 The close connection which we have attempted 
 to show exists between drawing and all school 
 studies, may tempt some to say that any study 
 helps all others. This, to a certain extent, is true. 
 But we believe that no other subject than drawing, 
 except language, is so intimately associated with all 
 legitimate school work. Drawing is a language, a 
 universal language, read and understood by all 
 mankind of whatever nationality or tojigue. What- 
 ever argument may be used in favor of the study of 
 
Teachers' :fissociulion. 301 
 
 language in general, both for practical use and as a 
 means of culture, may be used, possibly in a more 
 limited measure, in favor of drawing. 
 
 To consider the subject more generally, attention, 
 or the power of fixing the mind on some particular 
 subject and holding it there, is necessary for success 
 in the pursuit of all knowledge, or for success in any 
 department of life. ~ When drawing is properly 
 taught the power of attention is directly cultivated. 
 It is constantly making demands for close and 
 continued observation. It requires accurate com- 
 parisons between different objects and the different 
 parts of the same object. The repeated and 
 agreeable exercise of this faculty becomes a fixed 
 habit of the mind, in time, and is unconsciously 
 used in all after life in reference to all objects 
 of investigation, to the great advantage of its 
 possessor. When invention and composition in 
 drawing are taught, as they may be, in our schools, 
 they become powerful aids in the cultivation of the 
 taste, reason, and imagination. When by simple 
 and progressive exercises, children discover that 
 they have the power to create new forms and 
 designs, the imagination becomes active, and the 
 whole mind is aroused to greater activity in the 
 pursuit of abstract knowledge. Closely allied to 
 
302 J^orth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 this is the power of conception. The children 
 should be taught to remember forms, and by 
 rearranging them in their minds, to form mental 
 pictures which may be represented by drawing. 
 Prom the formation of concepts of this kind it is 
 only an easy step to the formation of concepts in 
 other departments of thought. 
 
 It is this power of conception that enables a 
 mechanic or artisan to ' ' see in space ; ' ' that is, to 
 see the form he would produce in the rude material 
 in which he works. It enables the wagon-maker to 
 see the hub and other parts of a wheel in the wood 
 from which he makes them. By this power the 
 potter sees the beautiful vase in the clay before 
 him. 
 
 The still higher exercise of this power is beauti- 
 fully illustrated by an anecdote told of Michael 
 Angelo. As he was one day rambling, in his holiday 
 attire, with some friends, in an out-of-the-way street 
 in Florence, he suddenly turned aside to a block of 
 marble, nearly covered with dirt and rubbish, and 
 began to work upon it to remove the mire in which 
 it lay. His friends seeing nothing but a worthless 
 piece of rock asked him in astonishment what he 
 was going to do with it. " Oh ! there's an angel in 
 the stone," was his answer, "and I must get it 
 
TeacTiers' Association. 303 
 
 out." He had it taken to Ms studio, where with 
 much patience and labor with mallet and chisel, " Ae 
 let the angel out.^'' "What to others was but a 
 rude, unsightly mass of stone, to his educated eye 
 was the buried glory of art ; and he discovered at a 
 glance what might be made of it. A mason would 
 have put it into a stone wall ; a cartman would have 
 used it in filling in, or to grade the streets ; but he 
 transformed it into a creation of genius, and gave it 
 a value for ages to come." 
 
 Tea,chers sometimes urge against the introduction 
 of drawing, that there is no time. We wish it dis- 
 tinctly understood, however, that drawing does not 
 seek admission into our schools for the purpose of 
 diminishing attainments in other branches of useful 
 study, but as a handmaid to all of them, and as a 
 relief from over-study. Parents sometimes com- 
 plain that we as superintendents and teachers have 
 been driving their children through the mazes of 
 reading, word method, phonic method, writing, 
 spelling, mental arithmetic, written arithmetic, 
 geography, map drawing, object lessons, including 
 botany lessons, physiology lessons, physics, com- 
 positions, language lessons, grammar lessons, etc., 
 etc., with a speed, little, if any, less than dangerous 
 to their health and constitutions. Drawing comes 
 
304 J\forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 in not to increase this speed, but to moderate it, by 
 relaxing the mind and improving and enlivening 
 our methods of instruction ; by furnishing more for 
 the hands to do while the excited brain is compara- 
 tively at rest. We plead then for the introduction 
 of drawing in behalf of the children in our schools 
 who are in danger of being over-worked. 
 
 Having attempted to show that the study of 
 drawing more than pays for its time and cost, in its 
 favorable influence on the studies already in our 
 schools, we shall now attempt to show that it is not 
 only valuable inside of the school room, but that, 
 outside of it, it has a practical bearing on most of 
 the professions and avocations of life, and emi- 
 nently deserves the name of "bread-winner." 
 
 It is generally supposed that not much skill is 
 required to dig a ditch. Let us, for a moment, see 
 what effect drawing will have upon the work t)f the 
 ditch-digger. If he has been taught to draw, he 
 can dig a straighter and better ditch and do it in 
 less time than if he has had no instruction of this 
 kind. Why? Because his trained eye sees at a 
 glance just what is to be done. He knows when he 
 is digging too deep or not deep enough, and wastes 
 no time in making mistakes to be corrected after- 
 ward. Such a man, working in the company of a 
 
Teachers' :^ssocialion. 305 
 
 dozen companions, soon shows his superiority and 
 is selected to oversee the work of others, while his 
 fellow- workmen, with stronger muscles, it may be, 
 but with less skill, are obliged to work under him 
 for less wages than he receives. 
 
 The carpenter who understands drawing plans 
 and lays out work for those who cannot do so, and 
 receives his reward in better wages and the increased 
 confidence" of those who have building to be done. 
 He has the prospect before him of becoming an 
 architect of the first class, while his ignorant com- 
 panion continues to plod through life without any 
 prospect of advancement. 
 
 The blacksmith who can draw, can also work 
 more skilfully than the one who cannot. He gets 
 the work that pays the highest price, while the 
 man who works by "rule of thumb" does the 
 drudgery of his trade and receives lower wages. 
 He has the foundation for becoming, with practice, 
 a skilful artificer in iron rivaling the works of the 
 middle ages. 
 
 The stone mason who has been trained to draw, 
 becomes something more than a day laborer who 
 lays down his zinc pattern, made by another, and, 
 after marking around it, clips away the stone until 
 it is the right shape. He becomes the skilled carver, 
 
 30 
 
306 North-Eastern Ohio 
 
 perhaps he makes designs and patterns of his own 
 and thus becomes the expert artisan. 
 
 The wagon maker, the cabinet maker, the ma- 
 chinist, and every kind of- mechanic, each and all, 
 daily and hourly, use the same kind of skill in 
 judging of forms, lines and curves that a proper 
 training in drawing gives. 
 
 Again, in connection with these trades and pro- 
 fessions, this fact, demonstrated hundreds of times, 
 by actual experience, should not be overlooked : 
 that a boy who has been trained to draw from child- 
 hood, will learn any of the foregoing trades, or any 
 other mechanical business, in about one-half of the 
 time that is required by the boy of equal talent, but 
 having no previous instruction in drawing. This 
 point becomes still more important when taken in 
 connection with another well known fact, that, 
 "owing to the abandonment of the old system of 
 apprenticeship, by which young persons were 
 trained to become skillful workmen in the various 
 employments and trades, and from the bitter oppo- 
 sition of trades unions to the training of youth in 
 their various occupations, it has become almost 
 impossible for a parent to procure 'for his children 
 such industrial training as will make them skillful 
 artisans." 
 
Teachers' Association. 307 
 
 It were useless for us to show that such occupa- 
 tions as that of the civil engineer, engraver, fresco 
 painter, etc., cannot exist without drawing. 
 
 It may be said that in this enumeration of the 
 advantages of drawing to the different mechanical 
 trades and employments, we have left out the 
 farmer, the most numerous class of all occupations. 
 But to the ambitious farmer, a skilled eye and 
 trained hand cannot be useless. A knowledge of 
 drawing enables him the better to lay off his 
 grounds and divide his fields. By it he plans his 
 houses and barns, adapting them to their circum- 
 stances and uses. By it he describes with lines, 
 as well as words, "the peculiar vegetation, the 
 name of which he does not know, and the kind of 
 insect which destroys his crops." By it he will 
 make straighter corn rows, keep his fences and 
 gates in better order, and there will be an appear- 
 ance of order and good taste about his - premises 
 that will not only be pleasant and gratifying to the 
 eye, but will add a money value to his farm. 
 
 Thus far we have considered the practical uses 
 of drawing, outside of the school room, to boys and 
 men. Why teach drawing to the girls \ Most 
 women are intimately connected with housekeeping. 
 They either keep house for themselves or others^ 
 
308 J\forl?i-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 or are called upon to decide when it is well done. 
 Much, of the diflference between good and bad 
 housekeeping consists in the amount of taste and 
 skill displayed in the arrangement of furniture, 
 pictures and other household effects. The woman 
 of taste and training, though poor, makes a more 
 pleasing and satisfying home than her rich neigh- 
 bor without this culture. The mother trained to 
 draw in her youth will cut out clothes for her 
 children or others, not only so as to be more 
 pleasing, but also in a more economical manner. 
 When drawing and designing have been well taught 
 in our schools for some time, we shall find women 
 becoming engravers and designers of ornaments for 
 calico printing, carpets, oil cloths, wall paper, etc. 
 Thus many light employments, requiring taste and 
 skill rather than strength, and which have hitherto 
 been monopolized by men, will be open to women. 
 "In London more than a thousand girls earn a 
 handsome living by making designs for illustrated 
 books, prints, etc." 
 
 We might go on and multiply examples of 
 trades and professions that are directly benefited 
 by the training that drawing gives, but we think 
 enough has been said to convince most thinking 
 persons that drawing is not an accomplishment, as 
 
Teachers' Association. 309 
 
 many suppose, but one of the most practical of all 
 studies in common or high school courses. 
 
 Having shown that drawing is highly beneficial 
 to the individual, let us consider its influence upon 
 state and national prosperity. 
 
 The history of the world is a history of conflicts. 
 Far too many of them have been upon fields of 
 battle, amid the hissing of bullets and the roar of 
 cannon. Hitherto nations have tried to excel each 
 other in the invention and use of war implements. 
 They have measured each other's power and influ- 
 ence in the world by the number of vessels of war 
 in their navies and the number of soldiers in their 
 standing armies. 
 
 Of late years, however, industrial conflicts have 
 been absorbing the attention of the leading nations. 
 They are struggling with each other for the 
 supremacy in the markets of the world. European 
 nations have foreseen the importance of these con- 
 tests, and for twenty-flve or thirty years have been 
 earnestly engaged in preparing for these bloodless 
 battles. Not by the casting of cannon and the 
 building of iron steamers, but by the creation of 
 museums filled with the rarest and most costly 
 prodiicts of industrial art ; by the establishment 
 of art schools, which are drawing schools of high 
 
* 
 
 310 7\torth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 * 
 
 grade ; by arming every boy and girl with a lead 
 pencil and teaching them how to use it. It has long 
 since been proclaimed that "The pen is mightier 
 than the sword," but we have yet to learn prac- 
 tically that "the pencil is the most efficient ally 
 of the needle-gun." 
 
 In our own country we have been absorbed in 
 building railroads, telegraphs, and the ruder neces- 
 sities of civilization ; also in the accumulation of 
 wealth. Having had some success in these directions, 
 we find the number of persons engaged in such 
 occupations as are calculated to make life more 
 comfortable, and such as are calculated to adorn 
 our homes and embellish our lives, are more 
 rapidly increasing than those engaged in providing 
 for our actual necessities. We find as a consequence 
 that the population of the cities and towns is gaining 
 on that of the country. We may not like this 
 tendency, but we cannot prevent it so long as the 
 invention of labor-saving machines continues. Our 
 nation cannot be prosperous if our cities and towns 
 are prostrated, as agriculture must have consumers 
 for its products. Cities and towns cannot flourish 
 without manufactures. Manufactures cannot exist 
 without drawing, or the cultivation of the eye, the 
 hand, and the taste which comes from drawing. 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 311 
 
 The more artistic the manufacture the more need of 
 drawing, and the more profitable the manufacture 
 becomes to state or nation. Art manufactures have 
 the advantage over ruder ones, for several reasons. 
 They have the advantage in transportation. "It 
 costs but little to transport skill and taste, but a 
 great deal, comparatively, to transport ignorance 
 and raw material." 
 
 Artistic manufactures have the advantage, be- 
 cause they produce a better population — a better 
 population, because more intelligent — more intel- 
 ligent, because artistic manufactures cannot be 
 produced without intelligence. Such a population 
 has more money, more comfort, more refinement. 
 It has more money because it is better paid. It 
 spends more for churches, schools and the higher 
 wants of the mind. Tradesmen and farmers also 
 share in the prosperity of the artisan class. 
 
 We said the different nations are competing with 
 each other, and watching each other's movements 
 upon the field of art industry, as eagerly as ever 
 they have done so on the field of battle. This 
 matter of competition is becoming of overwhelming 
 importance. Owing to the multiplication of rail- 
 roads, steamships and telegraphs, our competitors 
 are not our neighbors only, but "the whole world 
 
312 J\fort?i-Easiern Ohio 
 
 beyond the seas and on the opposite side of the 
 planet." Distance counts less and less every year, 
 while skill rises in value in the same ratio. It 
 is of the utmost importance, then, that we know 
 what other nations and states are doing in this 
 matter of drawing and industrial art training. If 
 your antagonist is armed with a revolver, you do 
 not care to meet him in deadly conflict, if armed 
 only with a pop-gun. If European nations are 
 sending forth into their workshops thousands of 
 trained artisans every year, we cannot cope with 
 them by native ability alone. We cannot protect 
 our home market, by tariffs. Tariffs may prevent 
 our buying what our higher tastes desire, by 
 excluding it from the market, but cannot force us 
 to buy that which our taste condemns. "There is 
 but one way for any country to meet foreign com- 
 petition in its home market, and that is, to put as 
 much taste and skill in its home manufacture as 
 the foreigner puts into his." 
 
 Let us inquire what some of the leading foreign 
 countries are doing for the advancement of art 
 manufactures. 
 
 "At the Universal Exposition of 1851, England 
 found herself, by general consent, almost at the 
 bottom of the list, among all the countries of the 
 
Teachers' M.ssociaUon. 313 
 
 world, in respect of her art manufactures. Only 
 the United States among the great nations stood 
 below her." 
 
 She became alarmed at this state of aflTairs and 
 appointed commissioners to investigate the cause. 
 She discovered that her competitors were giving 
 more attention to industrial drawing than she 
 had been doing. She immediately established art 
 schools all over the kingdom. At the Exposition of 
 1862 she found she was making creditable advance- 
 ment in art manufactures. At the Paris Exposition 
 of 1867, England stood among the foremost, and in 
 some branches of manufacture distanced the most 
 artistic nations. It was the schools of art, which, 
 were drawing schools of a high grade, that accom- 
 plished this great result in the period of sixteen 
 years. "The United States still held her place at 
 the foot of the column," and, we are sorry to say it, 
 remains there yet. 
 
 For a hundred years or more, drawing has 
 played an important part in the industrial education 
 of the French. Their wealth, according to good 
 authority, is owing principally to their drawing 
 schools, which are said to be the main-stays of their 
 art industry to-day. By means of this art culture 
 in their schools, they have raised thern selves to the 
 
314 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 mastery of the world in the departments of art and 
 of art manufacture. Although France has been en- 
 gaged in many costly wars and her national debt 
 is burdensome, she surprised Q-ermany and all the 
 world besides, by paying off her late war indebted- 
 ness before it was due. How was she enabled to do 
 this? Her art manufactures are demanded by every 
 civilized country in the world. Her industrial pro- 
 ducts having more of taste and skill than of bulk, 
 cost lesfe for transportation than breadstuffs and raw 
 materials ; hence she commands the markets of the 
 world for just those manufactures that it is to the 
 interest of any nation to produce. A late writer in 
 the commercial department of the New York Inde- 
 pendent s,?iy%, "We are now paying a good many 
 millions of dollars yearly to Prance for mere style 
 in cotton goods, and calicoes may be seen lying on 
 the same counters in our dry goods stores, not very 
 different in material value, which differ in price full 
 five hundred per cent. It is the elegance, the 
 superior taste, the artistic designs of French calicoes 
 which impart to them a value in ladies' eyes which 
 our own calicoes do not possess, and it should be 
 the aim of our manufacturers to compete with 
 them either in our own or in foreign markets." 
 It would be interesting to show how Q-ermany, 
 
Teachers' Association. 315 
 
 Austria, Russia and the smaller European countries 
 regard this matter of industrial drawing. Suffice it 
 to say that some of these stand in the front rank with 
 France and England, while all are vying with each 
 other for excellency in industrial art manufactures. 
 
 This impulse in favor of educating all so as to 
 give the seeing eye and the ready hand has been 
 wafted ovei; the Atlantic Ocean and has found a 
 lodgment on Plymouth Rock. Massachusetts, with 
 a never failing instinct as to how money is to be 
 made, has passed a law, (in 1870,) requiring draw- 
 ing to be taught in all her common schools, and 
 establishing evening schools for giving instruction 
 in drawing to all persons over fifteen years of age. 
 We find these evening schools filled with persons of 
 all ages from fifteen to sixty years. Even these 
 older students are eager to learn, and as they 
 become sensible of what they have lost, they 
 bemoan the fate that prevented their learning to 
 draw when younger. 
 
 Last spring the state of New York, following the 
 example of Massachusetts, passed a law making 
 drawing a compulsory study. This law went into 
 effect the first day of October, and the school 
 authorities are doing all they can to make the 
 introduction of this study universal. 
 
316 ?{orin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 It requires no prophet to foresee what is to be the 
 result. It seems almost useless to say, that unless 
 the Western States begin to meet this' competition at 
 once in the schools, these Eastern States, on account 
 of the superior skill of their workmen, will bring us 
 under a more exacting tribute than we are at 
 present. They will continue to send us their art 
 manufactures, which we ought to produce at home, 
 and we shall continue to i delve in the earth in 
 order to produce the raw material to send to them 
 in exchange. We shall find it will take a great 
 deal of corn, wheat, and cotton, to buy a small 
 quantity of calico and other finer fabrics which 
 we consider desirable. 
 
 We feel that it is useless to say more in favor of 
 the practical value of drawing. The American peo- 
 ple are said to be eminently practical. Hence it 
 would seem only necessary to show them that a 
 want exists in order to have it supplied. The 
 Exposition at Philadelphia next year will give us 
 a strong push in the right direction. We shall 
 come home convinced, I have no doubt, that we are 
 far behind all other first-class countries in the matter 
 of art education, and that if we wish ever to hold 
 our own in the markets of the world, we must give 
 our children the best possible advantages for 
 
Teachers' Association. 317 
 
 training their eyes and their hands. We shall be 
 convinced, I hope, that no other subject of study 
 is now so much needed ; that "nothing else could 
 add such rapid wealth to the country — wealth of 
 tasteful production, and wealth of enjoyment of 
 tasteful products." 
 
 It would be a pleasant and profitable task to 
 contemplate some of the higher uses of drawing. A 
 man trained in drawing, in the language of Addison, 
 ' ' is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar 
 are not capable of receiving. He can converse with 
 a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a 
 statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a 
 description, and often feels a greater satisfaction 
 in the prospect of fields and meadows than another 
 does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind 
 of property in everything he sees, and makes the 
 most rude, uncultivated parts of nature administer 
 to his pleasures ; so that he looks upon the world, 
 as it were, in another light, and discovers in it a 
 multitude of charms that conceal themselves from 
 the generality of mankind." 
 
 The desire for ornament is as natural and 
 universal as that of any other of human nature. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the gratification of 
 this desire is only a luxury— it is a positive want 
 
•318 J\fort'h-Eastern Ohio 
 
 that cannot be neglected without great injury to 
 human character. This desire is one of the earliest 
 to manifest itself. Man in a savage state, frequently 
 feels the need of ornament even before he knows the 
 want of clothes. This desire for ornament is absent 
 in none, and it grows in the same ratio as progress 
 in civilization. As man advances he is no more 
 satisfied with the decoration of the rude tent or 
 wigwam, but desires to contemplate the divine 
 works of a Phidias and a Praxiteles. 
 
 Sight is the noblest of the senses. Something 
 more than eyes are necessary, however, that we 
 may see. Right seeing comes from training. Any- 
 thing that cultivates the power of correct vision, 
 really enlarges the world for us, for whatever is not 
 seen or perceived by us, might as well not exist, so 
 far as we are concerned. 
 
 Drawing is the avenue to many of the purest and 
 noblest pleasures of life. It opens our blind eyes 
 to the beauties of nature and art which surround 
 us, in the greatest profusion, but of which many of 
 us are entirely unconscious. It brings us into con- 
 tact with nature in her most pleasing and elevating 
 aspect ; and through "that elder scripture, writ by 
 God's own hand," as exhibited in flowers, trees, 
 landscapes, babbling brooks, fountains, valleys, 
 
Teachers' :^ssocialion. 319 
 
 hills and mountains, we are led to "look through 
 nature up to nature's Grod." 
 
 Finally, of the youth who has been properly 
 trained in drawing and art, and who learns to love 
 the beautiful forms that everywhere surround him, 
 we may say, in the language of another, that, 
 "Grod's glory of the sunset — all of the divine offer- 
 ings in the natural world — will be his while life 
 lasts, and when the white veil of flesh standing 
 between him and "his hereafter falls away from him 
 into the bosom of demanding earth, memory will 
 keep her seat in the mysterious intelligence he calls 
 his soul, and hold them sacred to him forever." 
 
 EEADING AS A MEANS OF DISCIPLINE, SUP- 
 PLEMENTARY TO SCHOOL TRAINING. 
 
 BY PEOF. 5IEAM MEAD, OBEKLIN. 
 
 No one gains his entire education in the schools. 
 Some well educated men have been almost wholly 
 indebted to other means of culture. This is notably 
 true of the honored statesman who has so recently* 
 been buried with public demonstrations of sorrow. 
 No college or academy can show any record of his 
 
 ♦November 30, 1876. 
 
320 JiorlTirEastern Ohio 
 
 scholarsliip. Even the country district school had 
 but little knowledge of him. Almost all that. he 
 had of early culture he gained by reading. After 
 a hard day's work on the farm he used to take long 
 walks to a distant neighbor's house where he could 
 read a borrowed book or newspaper, too precious for 
 him to take home. He gained access at last to a 
 library of a thousand books. "He read them by 
 the flickering brands on the hearth, for the most 
 part while his exacting master slept." 
 
 Thus was gained the early discipline that lay at 
 the foundation of the remarkable success of our late 
 vice president, Henry Wilson. One of the lessons 
 which his life teaches us is that reading may he 
 quite as important a factor in education as the 
 discipline of the school room. To know how and 
 what to read is, therefore, just as important as a 
 wisely selected course of study. 
 
 At this point our modern modes of education 
 subject young students to a test that is often fatally 
 severe. The curriculum of the high school or the 
 college is prescribed. No skill or judgment is 
 required to follow it. It is like the track for the 
 railway engine, upon which it must run. But 
 when we come to a course of reading in general 
 literature we are upon a trackless ocean, and the 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 331 
 
 right path can be discerned only by a skilled 
 pilot. 
 
 The young reader is, at the outset, confounded 
 by the illimitable range of book-learning in which 
 his explorations must be made. He imagines him- 
 self standing in the British Museum, or the Library 
 of Paris, surrounded by more than a million of 
 bound volumes, and then reflecting that at the rate 
 of one volume per week twenty thousand years 
 would be required for the perusal of them all, and 
 that even the works contained in one of our large 
 American libraries could not at the same rapid rate, 
 be read in less than three thousand years, he is 
 baffled as he would be by an attempt to conceive of 
 infinite space or endless time. What shall be done 
 when a thousand courses are presented while only 
 one can be taken ? 
 
 This perplexity and liability to mistake are in- 
 creased by the glitter and attractiveness of recent 
 productions. If the advertisements of publishers, 
 or even the commendations of learned and critical 
 book reviewers may be trusted, the publications 
 that are just now issuing from the press should all 
 be read ; and then no time is left for the old stand- 
 ard works. 
 
 This temptation to read so much that is new, 
 
 2 1 
 
332 7{orin-Easiern Ohio 
 
 allures many a reader away from the old, and, when 
 it is too late, he finds, to his infinite sorrow, that he 
 has been chasing an ignis fatuus and has missed 
 the beaten highway of true learning. 
 
 Liability to error in this matter cannot be pre- 
 vented, but it may be diminished. It is not the 
 purpose of this paper to tell what and how many 
 books the student should attempt to read for the 
 purpose of supplementing his school culture, but 
 rather to offer some suggestions which will help 
 him in the selection as well as in the use of books. 
 
 I. There is need of special care, first, as to the 
 quality of our reading. 
 
 The mind, like the body, grows by what it feeds 
 upon ; and the kind of that growth, the quality and 
 strength of the mental fiber, will be determined 
 chiefly by the quality of that which enters into it. 
 Not more really is the physical frame built up of 
 the material which the lungs and the digestive 
 organs have assimilated, than is the mental struc- 
 ture made up of that which one has seen, heard, 
 attended to, and meditated upon. If the mental 
 capacity were a mere receptacle of ideas and facts it 
 might be filled and emptied again and still remain 
 the same, as do the brick walls of a warehouse 
 after the reception and discharge of successive 
 
Teachers' M.ssociaUon. 333 
 
 cargoes. But the mind is not mere capacity. Ety- 
 mologically considered this term is altogether 
 inappropriate. The mind does not hold and shape 
 ideas so much as it is held and shaped by ideas. 
 No organic living thing is so susceptible to mould- 
 ing influences. By means of climate, nutriment and 
 culture, plants and animals may be marvelously 
 diflferentiated. After several generations, pigeons 
 may thus be transformed into doves, and possibly, 
 wolves into dogs. But in a single lifetime an 
 ignorant peasant may be developed into a philoso- 
 pher, and a brutal savage may become a saint. 
 
 And the transformation is mainly the natural 
 result of taking into the mind the facts and ideas of 
 oral and written speech. These may be said to 
 enter into the composition of the mind, as the phos- 
 phorus of our food enters into the very substance of 
 the brain. Chemists can analyze the brain and tell 
 the relative quantity of its several parts. If a simi- 
 lar analysis of the mental structure were possible 
 the result — in some cases — might (in scientific 
 phrase) be thus announced : 
 
 Newspaper stories and novels — 750 parts. 
 Travels and humorous descriptions (like those of 
 Mark Twain) — 100 parts. 
 
 Scientific books and lectures — 50 parts. 
 
324 l^orlJi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Skeptical assaults on the Christian religion — 75 
 parts. 
 
 English classics — -20 parts. 
 
 Sermons and religious books — 5 parts. 
 
 Bible — a trace. 
 
 Youthful minds of a certain type are very likely to 
 become, for a period, completely saturated with the 
 productions of a single class of fascinating writers, 
 or, it may be, of some one author of commanding 
 genius. There was a time when, as Macaulay tells 
 us, the sentiments of Lord Byron entered into and 
 actually constituted the intellectual and moral life 
 of multitudes of youth. "They learned his poems 
 by heart, and did their best to write like him. . . 
 The number of hopeful undergraduates and medical 
 students who became things of dark imaginings, 
 on whom the freshness of the heart ceased to fall 
 like dew, whose passions had consumed themselves 
 to dust, and to whom the relief x of tears was denied, 
 passes all calculation. This was not the worst. 
 There was created in the minds of many of these 
 enthusiasts a pernicious and absurd association 
 between intellectual power and moral depravity. 
 Prom the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system 
 of ethics compounded of misanthropy and volup- 
 tuousness ; a system on which the two great 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 325 
 
 commandments were, to hate y,our neighbor and 
 love yonr neighbor's wife." 
 
 Now, the fact to be noted here is that young 
 persons who have thus eagerly and lovingly 
 absorbed the sentiments of any great mind are, 
 thereby, transformed. They are no more what they 
 were, and they never can be again. The enthusiastic 
 lover of Byron is henceforth Byronized ; the admirer 
 of Carlyle soon becomes essentially Carlylean, and 
 the worshiper of Emerson is, in his measure, 
 rendered Emersonian. And this is the case not 
 with weak minds only. The best and strongest, 
 those in which individuality is predominant, have 
 been in the same way transfused by, and assimilated 
 to, other minds. Frederick W. Robertson, who was 
 remarkable for nothing so much as his indepen- 
 dence and originality, confessed that the writings 
 of certain great men had "passed like the iron 
 atoms of the blood into his mental constitution." 
 
 This being so, it is very plain at the outset, 
 that it is in the Mghest degree desirable that one 
 should read only the very best authors — those that 
 stand in the very first rank by the common consent 
 of scholarly men. 
 
 It is the mistaken notion of our day that young 
 minds specially should be nourished by those weak 
 
326 'Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 dilutions of thought that come in the shape of a 
 popular juvenile literature — much of it the product 
 of untrained and feeble minds. At that very period 
 when, if ever, the mind should be wakened into 
 profound thoughtfulness by contact with those who 
 have been thrilled by the deep meaning of human 
 existence, our young people are given over to the 
 tuition of weak, sentimental story-tellers. !N"ow, it 
 may be necessary, in the present state of things, to 
 place our children in the primary schools under 
 the care of young, inexperienced teachers ; but who 
 can doubt that it would be better for them to be 
 trained by such men as Dr. Arnold and Agassiz, or 
 by such women as Mary Lyon. This is imprac- 
 ticable, but it is not also impracticable to subject 
 these same children to the influence of the best 
 minds' embodied in books — "books that are not 
 absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of 
 life in them to be as active as that soul was whose 
 progeny they are." A good book written by the 
 wisest man costs no more — it costs less — than the 
 last illustrated blue-and-gold bound novel of Miss 
 Anonymous, just out of her "teens," whose prolific 
 pen is so busy in furnishing new manuscript for 
 some enterprising publisher of Sunday School 
 books. What hope can there be of the healthy 
 
Teachers' Association. 327 
 
 intellectual development of those who in early youth 
 are surfeited by literary sugar candies % No really 
 great men have ever been nourished by such food. 
 
 There is a lesson to be learned from the records 
 which are left us of the early surroundings and the 
 intellectual employments of those who afterwards 
 became renowned. The kind of training which 
 Lord Bacon had in his boyhood is shown by the 
 fact that at eleven years of age he wrote a philo- 
 sophical essay on the imagination. The poetic 
 genius of Milton was fostered while yet very young 
 by his continuous reading of Spenser. In one of 
 the biographical sketches of President Edwards' 
 life, attention is called to "the manifest disparity 
 between his early surroundings and his future 
 greatness;" but when the writer goes on to say 
 that at the age of seven he was studying Latin and 
 reciting to his father, a man of scholarly attainments, 
 and that, in the intervals between his study hours, 
 he used to pass much of his time in the fields and 
 forests of his country home, watching with keen, 
 penetrating eye the goings-on of nature ; and that 
 when twelve years old he embodied some of his 
 original observations in one of the most instructive 
 and interesting papers ever written in the depart- 
 ment of natural history ; that when but fourteen 
 
328 .T^orlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 years of age his spirit was kindled by his stiidy of 
 "Locke on the Understanding," which he read over 
 and over again with pen in hand, stopping often 
 to give expression to his own conception of 
 the meaning of such terms as "space," "being," 
 "consciousness," "sensation," "perception," "cer. 
 tainty ; " meantime enjoying, as he himself testifies, 
 "a far higher pleasure in the perusal of its pages, 
 than the most greedy miser feels when gathering 
 up handfuls of silver and gold from some newly 
 discovered mine" — when we have conned this 
 record the disparity between Edwards' early 
 surroundings and his subsequent greatness does 
 not seem so striking. It is after all only such a 
 disparity as that which exists between the acorn 
 that is planted in stony, but congenial soil, and 
 the future oak. 
 
 Robert Hall, when only nine years old, read and 
 comprehended Edwards' argumentative treatises; 
 and the celebrated Moses Stuart, when but twelve 
 years of age, was intensely interested in the same 
 author's profound treatise on the "Freedom of the 
 Will." Edmund Burke, one of the noblest intel- 
 lects the world has ever seen, read in early boyhood 
 the best authors extant in history and philosophy 
 and general literature. The essays of Lord Bacon 
 
Teachers' Association. 339 
 
 lie read again and again, with ever increasing 
 admiration. 
 
 Gibbon's early and invincible love of reading was 
 stimulated and guided by an excellent woman, not 
 his own mother, but, as he calls her, " the mother of 
 his mind," whose natural good sense was improved 
 by the perusal of the best works in the English lan- 
 guage ; under whose guidance the future historian 
 became familiar, in earliest boyhood, with Pope's 
 Homer and Dryden's Yirgil, as well as the fas- 
 cinating Entertainments of the Arabian Nights. 
 William Pitt, the younger, was trained in the clas- 
 sics so ' early that when fourteen years of age he 
 could, without previous study, translate the Greek 
 of Thucydides fluently into accurate English. And 
 whatever we may say of the inhumanity and dis- 
 tortion of John Stuart Mill's paternal training, we 
 must allow that the early contact of his mind with 
 the chief thinkers of the world, was the principal 
 source of his great, though sadly perverted, intel- 
 lectual powers. 
 
 It is quite probable that every strong thinker has 
 thus been indebted, more than we know, to his 
 early contact with the best authors. And it is 
 equally probable that thousands upon thousands 
 who, by the same sort of early culture might have 
 
330 . J\forl'h-JEaslern Ohio 
 
 been made great, have been reduced to eflfeminacy 
 by the weakness of the literature upon which their 
 childhood has been fed. 
 
 II. There is need of equal care as regards the 
 amount of our reading. It was the advice of 
 Luther, as good as it is quaint, that "those who 
 study in what art soever should betake themselves 
 to the reading of some sure and certain sorts of 
 books oftentimes, over and over again ; for to read 
 many sorts of books produceth more and rather 
 confusion, than to learn thereout anything certainly 
 or perfectly, like as those that dwell everywhere 
 and remain certainly in no place ; such do well 
 nowhere, nor are anywhere at home." This is 
 good advice for anyone, but specially for the young 
 reader. Fortunate is the youth who, having an 
 ardent passion for books, is prevented, in whatever 
 way, from devouring the contents of circulating 
 libraries, and the worse trash that comes in the form 
 of a sensational periodical literature. Who will say 
 that Daniel Webster had not cause for everlasting 
 gratitude rather than regret, in that books were a 
 great rarity in his father's humble home ? "To read 
 them once or twice," he says, "was nothing; I 
 thought they were to be got by heart." For want 
 of other poetry, for which he had an early fondness. 
 
Teachers' Association. 331 
 
 lie perused Watts' Psalms and Hymns over and 
 over, until, at the age of ten or twelve- years, he 
 "had most of them at his tongue's end." Let us 
 shed no sympathetic tears over this story, nor over 
 the equally sad privations of Abraham Lincoln's 
 boyhood. With the exception of two or three biog- 
 raphies, one of them Deems' Life of Washington, 
 young Lincoln had access only to ^sop' s Fables, 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Shakspeare and the 
 Bible. But these he read and re-read, over and 
 over again. We can easily believe that it was not 
 so much in spite of, as because of their early liter- 
 ary poverty, that these men became afterward so 
 wealthy in intellectual resources. Blessed are such 
 poor! 
 
 The scene is a familiar one in these days of 
 modern privilege, when some venerable man ' ' who 
 has come down to us from a former generation," 
 takes his little grandson on his knee, and then, 
 among other tales with which he tries to awaken 
 the little fellow's grateful appreciation of the suffer- 
 ings and sacrifices that were necessary to secure for 
 us this goodly inheritance, tells of the scarcity of 
 books in the" olden times, when almost the only 
 juvenile literature was the New England Primer 
 and Pilgrim's Progress, when picture books and 
 
332 'Norin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 children' s newspapers and magazines, with all their 
 wealth of stories and rebuses and conundrums were 
 not known, and boys and girls that wanted to read 
 had to content themselves with dog-eared copies of 
 Josephus' Antiquities or Edwards' History of Re- 
 demption, with, perhaps, a volume or two of Tillot- 
 son or Baxter, to which, in the department of poetry, 
 there may be added Shakspeare and Milton, Young' s 
 Night Thoughts and Pope's Essay on Man. 
 
 Venerable friend ! spare our feelings. When we 
 think of the debilitating sentimental stuff in the 
 shape of literature which most boys and girls in 
 these days have put into their hands — to say 
 nothing of the obscene literature which is clan- 
 destinely but widely circulated — we are as little 
 disposed to weep over the literary destitutions of 
 our fathers as over the condition of Adam and Eve 
 while forbidden to eat of the fruit of the knowledge 
 of good and evil. Plainly the printing press, with 
 all its modern improvements is not an unmixed 
 blessing. It is putting it very mildly to say as one 
 does that the "facilities of production have multi- 
 plied the mass of books out of all proportion to the 
 needs of literature." We shall, state the case more 
 truthfully if we say that we are overwhelmed 
 with books and newspapers. Instead of fertilizing 
 
Teachers' Mssocialion. 333 
 
 sliowers there has come a deluge. And in order to 
 live in these waters we should be like whales "that 
 move rapidly about with mouths wide open in order 
 to catch and strain out a sufficient amount of infus- 
 oria to sustain them." 
 
 And now how to escape from the devastating 
 ruin to all healthy intellectual growth which such a 
 deluge threatens to bring — this is the great problem. 
 We cannot stop these outpourings' of the press. 
 They are likely to be increased rather than dimin- 
 ished. But we can and must learn how to 
 neutralize their damaging tendency. Carlyle no 
 doubt hits a real evil when he says that "the finest 
 nations of the world, the English and the Ameri- 
 cans, are going all away into wind and into tongue, 
 . . . and that there is very great necessity indeed 
 of getting a little more silent than we are." But 
 after all there is not so much danger of an excess of 
 talking as of reading. It is more thinking that is 
 needed — a deeper penetration into the hidden 
 meaning of human life and destiny. There 
 should be more of deliberate soundings into the 
 silent depths of true learning, and less of this rapid 
 sailing over the surface. 
 
 President Dwight in his later years congratulated 
 himself on having had weak eyes during so much 
 
334 'Norin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 of his life, for while thus prevented from reading 
 he was compelled to think. Other distinguished 
 scholars have been blessed in the same way. 
 Modern newspapers and other kinds of cheap dia- 
 mond-type literature may yet have the credit of 
 accomplishing one good result in that they are so 
 effective in putting out the eyes, for if we cannot 
 learn to read with some degree of judicious dis- 
 crimination it is quite as well not to read at all — for, 
 
 III. We should not only read the best books 
 and few of them, but we should read them well. 
 The most important of all lessons to be learned by 
 the young student is Tiow to read. 
 
 1. There is a very wide distinction between a real 
 perusing., a looking into and through a book, and 
 a rapid skimming over the surface and catching up 
 a thought here and there. To read in such a way 
 as to derive true intellectual improvement from it is 
 to immerse one' s self in the thoughts of the author, 
 to come into intelligent and sympathetic communion 
 with his mind, to think his thoughts after him and 
 weigh them in the balance of the reader's own 
 judgment, to take possession of them and lay them 
 away, not, however, as are packages of raw material 
 which may be carefully stowed away and labeled 
 without being opened, but rather like manufactured 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaiion. 335 
 
 goods, wrought by one' s own thinking into new and 
 original forms ; not as bars of metal that are piled 
 up in the very shape of the mould from which they 
 came, but refined and re-stamped by the minting 
 process of one' s own hard thinking. 
 
 I refer now, of course, not to newspapers, not to 
 statistical or scientific works, such as geographies or 
 natural histories, the design of which is simply to 
 give us facts, but rather to that class of works, 
 more properly termed literature, which address the 
 imagination and the moral feelings, the judgment 
 and the will. These are poems, like those of Homer 
 and Milton, Shakspeare and Wordsworth ; essays 
 like those of Plutarch, Lord Bacon, Pascal, Cole- 
 ridge, De Quincey and Emerson ; sermons like 
 those of South and Jeremy Taylor, Robertson and 
 Bushnell, oratory like that of Demosthenes, Burkq 
 and Webster. Such productions are not read till 
 their full meaning is comprehended and felt. They 
 are not read till they become a part of ourselves. 
 
 And here, let me stop long enough to say that 
 even our school and college text-books are in too 
 many cases not really read or studied in this sense, 
 so much as they are crammed. There are students 
 ^-multitudes of them — ^in our high schools and 
 colleges who have gained the astonishing ability to 
 
336 T/orlh-Easiern Ohio 
 
 hold in an undigested form, by tte bare grip of 
 memory, a great amount of text-book knowledge 
 just for a few hours, possibly two or three days, 
 about as long as a camel can carry his supply of 
 water in the desert, or as long as the whale could 
 hold Jonah, and then of giving it out at a recitation 
 or examination, and at the same time relieving 
 themselves so completely of the burden that they 
 can never again recollect what it was they learned ■ 
 so well and recited so fluently. The mind thus 
 treated after a while acquires the qualities of the 
 sponge, which absorbs water, holds it for a time 
 and then gives it out, without any perceptible 
 change in the sponge, though there is considerable 
 roiling of the water. From such study there is no 
 resulting growth of the mind, because there is no 
 .digestion and assimilation of the contents of the 
 books studied. 
 
 The evil of this is widely recognized and felt; 
 and yet our courses of study are every year 
 crowded with additional studies; fluent, but unin- 
 telligent recitations are more and more encouraged; 
 the memory is tasked at the expense of the reflec- 
 tive powers, until it has become a serious question 
 whether our modern methods of culture in our 
 graded schools and universities, with their fixed 
 
Teachers' ^ssocialion. 337 
 
 courses that are like the bed of Procrustes, to 
 which, rather than hy which, each student of what- 
 ever capacity must be accommodated, with their 
 precise routine of exercises that neither encourage 
 nor permit independent thought — whether this is 
 better than the old fashioned district school, 
 academy and college, as they were in New England 
 from fifty to a hundred years ago. But — not to go 
 into a discussion of the subject — we may safely 
 venture the suggestion that if, instead of extending 
 these courses of study, they were to be reduced by 
 one-half, so as to give an opportunity to drill the 
 student until he gains a thorough mastery of the 
 ideas of his text-books ; if the best specimens of 
 English literature were furnished in the read i n 
 books, and children were made to understand the 
 meaning arid feel the force of what they read ; if 
 time enough were given to each branch of learning 
 to enable the pupil to get possession of it ; — if edu- 
 cation should become more like this we should be 
 likely to make vigorous, independent thinkers of 
 those who are now likely to become mere chattering 
 parrots. 
 
 2. Reading that disciplines and strengthens the 
 mind is to be distinguished from mere recreative 
 reading. The larger proportion of those who regard 
 
 23 
 
338 . J^orth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 theinselves as cultured read always for pleasure 
 rather than for profit. But scholars should be 
 careful not to deceive themselves into the notion 
 that they are necessarily receiving the culture of 
 books because they are occupied with the printed 
 page. They should know the difference between 
 work and play, mental exertion and mental recrea- 
 tion, else they will be sure to fall into the worst 
 kind of mental dissipation. Reading constantly for 
 the mere pleasure of it, as Robertson says in one of 
 his letters, "weakens the mind more than doing 
 nothing, for it becomes a necessity at last, like 
 smoking, and is an excuse for the mind to lie 
 dormant whilst thought is poured in and runs 
 through, a clear stream over unproductive gravel, 
 on which not even mosses grow. It is the idlest of 
 idlenesses, aud leaves more. of impotency than any 
 other." 
 
 3. Disciplinary reading is still further to be 
 distinguished from the mere gathering up of facts. 
 Even while engaged in severe study one may consult 
 books without really reading them. One of the 
 most. learned of European physiologists told g-n 
 American scholar that he, had never read a book in 
 his life except the Bible. He meant that, he had 
 had time only to coijsult the, thousands of volumes 
 
Teachers' Association. 33 & 
 
 that lay around him, as one consults a dictionary. 
 Now in reading, the object is not to gain knowledge 
 simply, but wisdom. Let Cowper tell us the 
 difference between the two : 
 
 Knowledge dwells 
 In heads replete with thoughts of other men, 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own ; 
 Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass, 
 The mere materials with which wisdom builds 
 Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place, 
 Does but encumber what it seems to enrich. 
 
 Information is certainly desirable, but we may 
 overestimate its worth. After all, those who have 
 done the most valuable thinking and have, thereby, 
 exerted the greatest influence on other minds, have 
 not been men of facts, but of ideas. Facts are of 
 themselves worth nothing only as matters of mo- 
 mentary observation and interest. The arrival of 
 a comet, the shock of an earthquake, the eruption 
 of a volcano, the wreck of a vessel, the ascent of a 
 balloon, the discovery of a meteoric rock or of a 
 Cardiff giant — of what use are these, unless some 
 principle of human nature or some physical law is 
 suggested by them. To know a thing simply as an 
 occurrence is' as useless as to gather up chips at a 
 wood-pile ,and stow them away in a cabinet of 
 
340 J\fort?i-Eastern Ohio 
 
 natural history. A phenomenon is a thing of 
 insignificant importance in itself. It comes and 
 it is gone and will never again return. But the 
 cause that underlies it and out of which it comes, is 
 a permanent power, and in connection with other 
 causes is always producing like results. Philo- 
 sophical insight makes us prophets. We see that 
 the thing that is, is that which also shall be. It is 
 one thing to know what has transpired in past ages, 
 but quite another thing to be a student of history ; 
 one thing to be acquainted with the achievements of 
 men, another thing to know men. This penetrative 
 faculty which enables us to discern the forces that 
 underlie phenomena, out of which these phenomena 
 come, which sees the causes of events as vividly as 
 it sees the events themselves, which, therefore, 
 knows a priori what must be and will be, instead 
 of waiting in uncertainty for things to come to 
 pass — this power to comprehend the motive forces 
 in human history, is what we most need if we would 
 touch successfully the springs by which minds are 
 moved, or would know how to adjust the lever that 
 is to lift mankind. 
 
 4. The reading that invigorates the mind must be 
 determined by a high moral purpose. 
 
 In certain literary circles the shallow notion 
 
Teachers' :/Lssocialion. 341 
 
 prevails that the end of culture is simply literary- 
 attainment ; and it is imagined that nothing but the 
 necessity of gaining a livelihood by some lucrative 
 employment should keep any scholar from the 
 pursuit of literature for its own sake. To be 
 cultured, refined, critical ; to know how to talk 
 about books and works of art ; in short, to be a 
 mere dilettante is supposed to be the principal 
 thing. But this is a grave mistake. Literary 
 culture should never be desired for its own sake. 
 "Literary pursuits," says the wise Dr. Arnold, 
 " ought never to be a profession, but always rather 
 an appendage to some profession which should keep 
 a man alive by interesting him in questions of real 
 life, and of his own time. . . . Literary attainments 
 should be used in subordination to some Christian 
 end, or else they become as fatal as absolute idle- 
 ness." We can easily see that this ought to be so. 
 It accords with the Scripture : "He that loseth his 
 life shall find it." 
 
 But we have ample proof of it in all the living 
 literatures of the world. Without stopping to 
 consider the significant fact that mere critics have 
 never been authors, it is enough to observe that the 
 great orators and poets and philosophers, whose 
 productions the world " will not willingly let die," 
 
342 J\fort?i-Easiern OTiio 
 
 were those who had an end in view above them- 
 selves. Demosthenes did not deliver his famous 
 orations for the sake of gaining an orator's fame, 
 but that he might persuade the Athenians to march 
 against Philip. Chatham and Burke did not mean 
 to be eloquent, for eloquence' sake, when they 
 argued so grandly in the British Parliament against 
 the efforts of the Crown to crush American liberty. 
 Patrick Henry did not look in the mirror to see 
 how well he was performing when he made that 
 celebrated speech at the opening of the first con- 
 gress, one hundred years ago. Lincoln had no 
 thought of producing one of the best specimens of 
 English literature, when he stood above the graves 
 of Gettysburg and from a full soul pronounced his 
 eulogy on the patriot dead, for whom and with 
 whom his great sympathetic heart had bled. So 
 far as we know, Shakspeare never thought of fame 
 while writing his plays; and John Bunyan cer- 
 tainly could not have expected that after he had 
 died, such a critic as Macaulay would coolly 
 pronounce the highest encomium upon him as 
 a literary genius. Our [.most honored American 
 authoress — more popular onCe than now, because 
 she used to write better than now — while compos- 
 ing, under the impulse of philanthropic feeliMg, 
 
Teachers' :>lssoci(iUon. 343 
 
 the story that made her immediately illustrious on 
 two continents, never imagined, at the time, that 
 she was producing a great literary work. All 
 best things that have been said in the best way 
 have been melted and moulded in the heat of some 
 intense and fervent desire to benefit mankind. 
 
 And this is the chief reason why the Bible, in a 
 mere literary point of view, is so far superior to all 
 that has ever been written. It is the purity and 
 intensity of its high and holy aim that makes it, as 
 a body of literature, the '■'■BookofbooTcsy 
 
 It is a singular fact that while many believers 
 in its inspiration are ready to banish it from our 
 schools, Matthew Arnold, the skeptic and literary 
 critic, wishes to retain it, and make it, what it is so 
 well iitted to be, a means of the highest mental 
 culture. In his introduction to a text-book he has 
 prepared for use in common schools, consisting of a 
 portion of the prophecy of Isaiah, with annotations 
 of his own, he says that "if poetry, philosophy and 
 eloquence, if what we call letters are a power, and 
 a beneficent, wonder-working power in education, 
 through the Bible only have the people much 
 chance of getting at poetry, philosophy and elo- 
 quence. Chords of power are touched by this 
 instruction which no other part of the > instruction 
 
344 mrlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 of a common school reaches." Goethe's free think- 
 ing friends reproached him for wasting his time over 
 the Bible; but his answer was: "I am convinced 
 that the Bible becomes even more beautiful the 
 more one understands it." But its beauty and 
 power are due to the simplicity, directness and 
 earnestness of its intent, viz: to show the way in 
 which weak, sinful mortals may be regenerated and 
 saved. It is the religion of the Bible that makes it 
 thus vital, and it is its religion also that renders it, 
 in the opinion of an increasing number, unfit for use 
 in our schools ! The consistency of these proposi- 
 tions I leave it to others to explain. 
 
 In oflfering these common-place suggestions I 
 have hoped to make the impression that a sound 
 literary culture, a profitable acquaintance with the 
 best thinkers, is for most of us altogether practi- 
 cable. I have desired to relieve the young reader, 
 who is so apt to be appalled by the amount of liter- 
 ature which seems to demand perusal, by showing 
 that the attempt to read everything is as foolish 
 as it is impossible ; that, instead of its being a sign 
 of literary attainment to have read — besides the 
 leading newspapers, monthlies and quarterlies — 
 all the latest novels from Charles Reade's down 
 to Mrs. South worth's, together with the latest 
 
Teachers' Association. 3'45 
 
 productions of historians, travelers and scientists, it 
 is rather a sign of inanity to profess to have done 
 all this, and altogether creditable to be, in the esti- 
 mation of our modern literary scavengers, quite 
 illiterate. We can well afford to be ignorant of that 
 which is worthless. For of all the books and pam- 
 phlets that are issuing from the press this present 
 year, so many of which we are tempted to read, 
 not one in a thousand will be inquired after, or 
 thought about, even three years hence. They are 
 but bubbles upon the stream, ready to vanish 
 away. 
 
 The view we have thus taken has also brought 
 into less than boundless compass the really valuable 
 literatures of the world. The world' s great thinkers 
 are few, and yet, few as they are, they are the 
 original sources of the best thought. Other minds 
 revolve about them and derive knowledge from 
 them, as in the solar system the planets revolve 
 about, and reflect the light of, the sun. Reflected, 
 even refracted, light is better than none, but the 
 direct rays are the best. Inasmuch as the vast 
 majority of authors are mere transcribers of other 
 men' s ideas, saying that which has been said before 
 with far more clearness, beauty and force, why not 
 go directly to the originals ? Why waste time in 
 
346 Norin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 gathering up and sifting out the minute and scat- 
 tered particles of gold dust that lie burled in the 
 measureless debris of modern literature, when the 
 mines of solid ore, from which all this dust has 
 been washed are so easily accessible and so much 
 more productive ? These original sources of thought 
 may be found in almost any well selected library. 
 They may one by one be gathered into our own pri- 
 vate libraries. Ruskin suggests that "if we read 
 Homer, Plato, JEschylus, Herodotus, Dante, Shak- 
 speare and ' Spenser as much as we ought, we shall 
 not require much enlargement of shelves to right 
 and left for perpetual study." Emerson, who 
 delves in so many mines, tells us, that he seldom 
 visits, the, library of Harvard College, with its two 
 hundred thousand volumes, without renewing the 
 conviction that the best of it all is within the four 
 w^lls of his study at home. 
 
 Certainly, enough of the best is within the reach 
 of us all. No student who is seeking the right 
 kind of culture needs, while in the high school or 
 college; course, tq be within reach of a hundred 
 thousand volumes, It m^-y be all. the better if he 
 can lay his hand upon only a few hundred. 
 
 The age in which we live wai;its, more than anyv 
 thing, else, strong men, men of deep convictions, 
 
Teachers' Association. 347 
 
 men who have dug down till they have struck the 
 hard-pan of philosophical and religious truth, and 
 are sure of the foundation dn which they stand. 
 But such men can never be developed by what is 
 sometimes called an "enlarged culture," the result 
 of wide miscellaneous reading, but rather by a 
 penetrative study of a few books. There is deep 
 meaning in the old adage, "Beware of the man of 
 one book ;" for the man who knows some one thing 
 well, if it he only the right thing, is stronger than 
 a legion of those who know many things but super- 
 ficially. One such "can chase a thousand, and two 
 put ten thousand to flight. ' ' 
 
 It may be true, as the author of the ' ' Enigmas of 
 Life" suggests, that there are never hereafter to be 
 men of such original greatness as Homer, and Plato, 
 and Angelo, and Shakspeare, and Cromwell, and 
 Knox, and others among thte geniuses of the times 
 gone by, but if there are to be those who shall in 
 anywise Resemble them, they will come up, not from 
 the ranks of the widely and superficially cultured, 
 but like our own Patrick Henry, and Webster and 
 Lincoln, from humble homes, where there are but 
 few -good books, and those well read. ' 
 
348 mrin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 BT H. M. PAEKEB, ELTEIA. 
 
 THIED PRESIDENT. 
 
 As this is Centennial year it seems to be quite 
 proper to take a retrospective and a prospective 
 view of the works of the North- Eastern Ohio Teach- 
 ers' Association. Since we are accustomed to fore- 
 cast the future by the past, let us turn our attention 
 for a few moments to what has been accomplished 
 by this Association, in order that we may, if possi- 
 ble, discern what should be done in the early future. 
 
 The North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association 
 has had an existence of six years. During that 
 time, with one exception, five meetings each year, 
 at each of which have been presented for discus- 
 sion three or four subjects bearing more or less 
 directly upon education. Able papers have been 
 read by many of the leading teachers in both the 
 public and private schools of Northern Ohio, and 
 by distinguished gentlemen of other professions. 
 These papers have been freely discussed by the 
 members of the Association and others who have 
 been present at the meetings. Such meetings have 
 been useful in various ways. 
 
Teachers' Association. 349 
 
 First. They have furnished those attending them 
 an opportunity to become well acquainted with each 
 other, thus facilitating exchange of views and rela- 
 tion of experiences both during the meetings and in 
 a social way before and after the meetings. 
 
 Second. Greater uniformity in grading has been 
 secured. The Association appointed committees to 
 report a course of study for graded schools. This 
 report was printed and distributed through North- 
 ern Ohio. Many adopted the report as it wa^, and 
 others adopted it in a modified form. The result 
 has been even better than was anticipated. Prior 
 to this, pupils moving from one town to another 
 found it difficult to enter classes of the grade they 
 left, owing to the difference in the course of study. 
 But now this does not exist to any great extent. 
 Thus many pupils are greatly benefited, and teach- 
 ers are spared anxiety and extra work. Uniformity 
 in grading throughout the state would be of still 
 greater value. 
 
 Third. The standard of scholarship has been 
 advanced by means of comparison of results at- 
 tained in different places. This is a natural 
 outgrowth of the friendly feelings secured by the 
 frequent meeting of superintendents and teachers. 
 Being on friendly terms, superintendents have 
 
350 Norih-Eastern OMo 
 
 visited each other's schools, and have been inspired 
 to greater effort in certain lines of work by what 
 they have seen in their neighbors' schools. 
 
 Fourth. Methods of instruction have been im- 
 proved. This has been especially true of small 
 places. Inexperienced teachers have attended the 
 Association and made the acquaintance of those 
 who have been longer in the work and have accepted 
 the invitations of such to visit their schools. Those 
 visits have been prolific of great good. The visitors 
 have returned to their own schools to introduce 
 better methods of teaching and thus to exert a 
 much more powerful influence upon their pupils. 
 
 The same object has been secured by occasional 
 class exercises given before the Association by suc- 
 cessful teachers. May we not hope the executive 
 committee will renew this means of improvement at 
 an early day ? 
 
 For other advantages that have been the. out- 
 growth of these meetings I refer you to your own 
 experience and to the forthcoming history of the 
 Association. 
 
 A few thoughts relative to the future work of 
 this Association. 
 
 The subject of higher education is at the present 
 one of great importance., The signs , of the times 
 
Teachers' Association. 351 
 
 indicate that the nation is to need educated men 
 and women to fight the battles of free thought 
 against error and bigotry. The public school 
 should take no insignificant part in this work. 
 Itself a child of the republic, it should endeavor 
 to make intelligent citizens of all its members. The 
 high school course should be made thorough, and 
 should be made to reach greater numbers. The 
 members of these schools should be led to pursue 
 more extended courses of study in our colleges. If 
 possible, the high school and college should be 
 brought together. In many of our smaller places, 
 'boards of education are not willing to incur the 
 expense of teaching Greek in the high school. In 
 this they represent the prevailing sentiment of the 
 community. They tolerate Latin, but would be 
 quite willing to drop that also. 
 
 In these high schools are many boys and girls 
 who would go away to college after leavirng the high 
 school, if they could enter the freshman class. If 
 arrangements by which this could be accomplished 
 could be made in Ohio, I believe the number from 
 the union school districts receiving a higher educa- 
 tion would be more than doubled. This question 
 has been discussed, and I trust we shall not relax 
 our efforts until we shall see it settled in accordance 
 
353 ■ JYorth-Easlern Ohio 
 
 with the interests of all concerned. I believe both 
 college and public school men want- to see it thus 
 adjusted. 
 
 Peroiit me to call your attention to a class of 
 pupils found in all the grades below the high 
 school, who, in natural ability, are in advance of 
 the majority of the grade to which they belong. 
 These pupils can do their work well in about two- 
 thirds of the time assigned, and can therefore haVe 
 the other third of the time for play or idleness, thus 
 accLuiring very bad habits of study. I know we are 
 apt to quiet ourselves with the thought that we do 
 allow pupils to go from a lower to a higher grade 
 whenever they show that they are prepared for the 
 transfer. But do we encourage them sufficiently ? 
 Do we insist upon their fitting themselves for the 
 higher work, and do we then place them where 
 they can make trial of their ability to accomplish 
 it? Unless- we do this, our pupils are much longer 
 in reaching' the high school than they need be. 
 How can this be avoided in our present system of 
 annual promotions? 
 
 Pupils of average ability who have good health 
 are well provided for in our schools. But when 
 from necessity, as absence from town, or sick- 
 ness, they are out of school from one to three 
 
Teachers' Association. 353 
 
 months, what shall be done with them on their 
 return? Shall they be put back a whole year? 
 Doubtless each has a plan he pursues in refer- 
 ence to such cases, but might it not be profitable 
 to compare views on the subject, and thus be led 
 into the best way ? 
 
 Then there are those in nearly every class who 
 are a little below the average in ability. They are a 
 dead weight to the class. They cause the better 
 scholars to fret because they are so slow, and to lose 
 many moments during the day. As these are not 
 capable of doing the required work thoroughly in 
 the required time, the teacher is compelled to pass 
 along over the work before they have mastered it. 
 Doubtless this is a very poor plan for the pupils. 
 What provision can be made for such, that they 
 may be enabled to do well what they undertake to 
 do, and that they may not be instrumental in keep- 
 ing back those who are capable of advancing more 
 rapidly ? Shall they be relieved from a part of the 
 work of the grade ? If so, shall they study with 
 the class, or shall they be put in schools by 
 themselves with a small number to each teacher, so 
 that each may receive a greater amount of personal 
 attention ? 
 
 Cannot something more be done for such as leave 
 
 23 
 
354 7\forlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 school at a very early age and for those who never 
 go to school at all % In the larger places there are 
 many sach — ^in every place some. Night schools 
 have been established in the cities. These reach 
 some, but I judge only a small number of those 
 needing the instruction. Could an unclassified 
 school be made useful in accomplishing a portion of. 
 this work % What shall be its work if established % 
 What branches of study shall be taught in it? 
 Shall those who wish to go into higher grades be 
 allowed to prepare themselves here for promotion \ 
 Shall those who have fallen behind their grades from 
 necessary absence be allowed to enter this school to 
 endeavor to recover their former positions % Might 
 not such schools be maintained to advantage a 
 portion of each year in the towns and small cities % 
 These and many kindred topics might be profitably 
 discussed by this Association. 
 
 A question of much importance to many of the 
 superintendents here is, how can we of the smaller 
 places secure experienced teachers % It is certainly 
 very important that we have such teachers in our 
 lower grades. Yet it is customary with boards 
 to place inexperienced teachers in such positions. 
 Cannot this Association suggest a practical plan 
 for securing the desired result % Cannot our high 
 
Teachers' Association. 355 
 
 school graduates receive some training which shall 
 fit them to do the work? May not this question 
 occupy our attention at some future day ? 
 
 Again, may there not be a question as to whether 
 the subjects to which the years of childhood and 
 youth are given in our schools, are the best for the 
 accomplishment of the object in view ? Perhaps it 
 will be well to inquire what we mean by education, 
 as it seems of prime importance that we have a clear 
 conception of the result we desire to produce. How 
 is it to improve the condition of the possessor? 
 Those. who advocated the education of the masses 
 at the time of the Reformation did so that they 
 might be able to read the Bible, and thus learn 
 their relation to God and to man, and be fitted for 
 usefulness and happiness ; they did not think of 
 developing the mind farther than that. 
 
 In this countrj'^ to-day children are urged to get 
 an education, that their chances of s access in life 
 may be greater— that they may occupy higher posi- 
 tions in the labor field and may make more money. 
 It used to be a common thing for teachers to tell 
 their boys that they should improve their time well, 
 for thus each might become president of the United 
 States. We may all strive for the hest places, but 
 we cannot all occupy them ; hence a system where 
 
y56 'Norlh-EasUrn OMo 
 
 all are pushing .eagerly for those places which are 
 considered most desirable by the multitude, is 
 likely to do much harm in a series of years. 
 
 But let us look a moment at what we require of 
 our pupils. Ancient and modern languages, his- 
 tory —ancient, medieval and modern, a full course in 
 mathematics, something of all the sciences, litera- 
 ture of all the races of men as well as their history. 
 In the lower grades pupils are expected to study 
 reading, spelling and defining, writing, drawing, 
 music, composition, map drawing, geography, 
 arithmetic, grammar, history, primers in physics, 
 botany, physiology, science of government, geo- 
 logy, astronomy, and chemistry — to be subjected to 
 written examinations in these branches of study 
 once in four or six weeks. They know that the 
 examinations occur at regular intervals of time, and 
 that they will be demoted if they do not reach 
 the standard. Does teaching under such circum- 
 stances sometimes become cramming? Or is all 
 this matter properly digested and assimilated ? It 
 is true, a quick child will commit to memory a 
 woaderfal amount of the material contained in 
 these primers ; but what has he gained by learning 
 these statements, most of which must remain only 
 words to him ? What part are they to play in 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 357 
 
 earning food and clotMng for Mm \ He will leave 
 school with the knowledge that there are a great 
 many desirable positions in life, bat without the 
 means of securing any of them. He earnestly 
 desires to succeed in life, but he does not wish to 
 do so by the long and circuitous, route of labor. 
 He may secure his ends by a shorter route ; if so, 
 what he gains is lost by some other person. ' Such 
 exchanges do not conduce to the moral growth of 
 the nation. 
 
 The children who never enter our schools have 
 some rights. They have the right to be put in the 
 way of earning their living. We have no right to 
 condemn them to a life of crime and want. While 
 we would teach them to read and to write, might not 
 some industrial instruction be combined with this ? 
 Our reform schools undertake to do this. If it were 
 done by our public schools, would our reform 
 schools have as many inmates? Might not our 
 boards make arrangements by which pupils could 
 be in school part of the day and the other part be 
 engaged in some industrial calling ? They should 
 then be taught facts and principles which they 
 could apply and use. Would they not thus be 
 able to choose a calling in life earlier and be mu.ch 
 more likely to rise to distinction through successful 
 
358 mrlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 effort in that calling. Let every boy be taught 
 some trade by which he can become independent. 
 
 These pupils should also be taught self-govern- 
 ment and the principles underlying the United 
 States government. Much attention should be paid 
 to the English language, that they may have the 
 means of becoming intelligent citizens ; then if what 
 they do is done for the sake of doing it well, success 
 is sure to follow. 
 
 Are we as educators responsible in a measure for 
 the alarming amount of ignorance in the land and 
 for the want of success of many who are in our 
 schools and more who are not % Have we used our 
 full influence to show to the people the great danger 
 of ignorance and idleness to the republic % We 
 have been faithfal to provide for those who have 
 been sent into our school rooms. Have we put 
 forth any effort to get those who have not been sent, 
 or to hold. longer those who have been withdrawn? 
 Let us— the teachers of, Northern Ohio — strive to 
 know our duty in this matter, and to do it. 
 
Teachers' :>lssociaUon. 359 
 
 MUSIC— ITS OBJECT— HOW AND BY WHOM 
 TAUGHT. 
 
 BY N. COE STEWART, CLEVELAND. 
 
 The terms music, singing, musician, music- 
 teacliing and education in music are so imperfectly 
 and variously understood, both from lack of 
 research, and because there are so few persons 
 in whose lives music has performed its proper 
 functions, that an explanation of them is thought 
 to be appropriate. 
 
 In casting about us we find the great mass of 
 human beings engaged at their several callings as 
 laborers, tradesmen, professionals, etc., in that 
 almost interminable exchange and interchange 
 which is called business. 
 
 Thus they go in and out, by and through, each 
 for himself, and all to the inevitable destiny of man. 
 Does the procuring of food, clothing, and homes 
 that the body may have nourishment, protection 
 and rest again to labor, that returning wants may be 
 supplied, constitute all there is of life'^ If it do, 
 the sooner the tired, harassing and sorrowing round 
 be completed the better. But no ! the physical wants 
 are supplied for another purpose. Let us consider. 
 
360 norin-Easlern Ohio 
 
 Take for example a healthy person engaged 
 in any laudable manual, mental or training 
 labor. He understands well, we will suppose, the 
 art of feeding and caring for his own body and 
 mind, that they may perform the work required of 
 them in the best possible manner. He allows, 
 without the ^lightest approach to jealousy, that 
 he is but an integral part of humanity, and con- 
 sequently has relations to others that are quite as 
 obligatory, and should be as carefully considered, 
 and the duties they impose as cheerfully performed, 
 as those pertaining to himself. He also appreciates 
 that there is a creating, assisting, controlling and 
 judging power, above and beyond all, for whose 
 glory he labors, whose sympathy he has, and 
 whose plaudit, "well done," and "enter into rest,'" 
 will be given, when the faithful life is ended. 
 
 Now, with this healthy, liberal and cultivated 
 person as an ideal, let* us — by taking our own 
 thoughts and emotions, and our observation of the 
 actions and expressed feelings of others, as a 
 standard, and, with due allowance for those not 
 up to the standard of the person before us — 
 follow him into action and witness the phenome- 
 non. The healthy action of his system gives, 
 when he rises in the morning after a night of 
 
Teachers' :^ssocialion. 361 
 
 refreshing sleep, a thrill of pleasure, and his 
 thoughts are raised to heaven in thankfulness. He 
 meets the family household, exchanges greetings, 
 and rejoices in the love of home. He sits down 
 to his nourishing food, glad that his labor brings 
 it, and eats virith delight. His appetite satisfied, 
 he sets out to his duties with elastic step, rejoiced 
 that he is able and is permitted to labor for 
 himself and those dependent upon him. As he 
 meets his fellows and exchanges courtesies, his 
 feelings are kind, and he is glad that they too 
 are permitted the activities of life. He begins work, 
 and while his mind is engaged in its successful 
 accomplishment, his emotions take a long train of 
 quiet delight. Something goes wrong, and in the 
 disaster and perplexity — in the absorption of right- 
 ing it, his emotions are depressed and complex. 
 Again, all goes well, and he is elated. He listens to 
 stories of success, and tales of sorrow, with friendly 
 gratulations and sympathetic emotion. He becomes 
 thirsty and hungry, and refreshing himself — 
 his emotions are those of intensity and gratitude. 
 After the work of the day, with the concomitant 
 "ups and downs" and varied incidents of which 
 all know, he returns to the privacy and the 
 love of home. Now, or at some time during 
 
363 J\forlh-Eastern Ohio 
 
 the day, comes his leisure, when he reads the 
 news, engages in conversation, counsels respect- 
 ing the welfare of the family, enjoys the social 
 circle — takes part in furthering the interests of 
 philanthropy and charity, studies, contemplates the 
 beautiful, or gives himself up to the enjoyment of 
 music. And thus his emotions, having been played 
 upon throughout their entire scale, from the gravest 
 to the most acute, and with all the varying shades 
 of intensity and velocity, he lies down to rest, 
 thankful that he has been permitted to enjoy so 
 much in doing for himself and his kind. 
 
 That this imperfect picture, with variations above 
 and below, caused by a greater or less appreciation 
 of the duties and relations of life, is about an aver- 
 age one with honest, conscientious and industrious 
 persons, I think you will allow. You will also 
 conclude that it is what he feels — his emotions — in 
 connection with, and independent of thought, that 
 make up the greater part of his life. The food 
 which nourishes, the labor which brings the food, 
 and the varied incidents and occasions are only used 
 as means to keep the instrument in tune, and by 
 playing upon it, make that music of the soul which 
 goes up well pleasing to the ear of Him by whom 
 and for whose glory all things are, and were created. 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 363 
 
 It follows too, that it is not only legitimate that 
 proper emotions should be cultivated, but also as 
 expression is essential to their development, that our 
 relation to others, and in justice to ourselves, an art 
 medium for their expression is demanded. 
 
 What shall be their language % Poetry will not 
 answer the purpose. Its primal use was to arrange 
 thoughts in a regular and euphonious rhythm, as an 
 aid to memory, and no matter how beautiful the 
 thought, there still remains the emotion beyond, 
 clamoring for expression. Grood poets appreciate 
 rhythm, but not necessarily melody. "Pope, on 
 hearing Handel play some of his finest pieces, 
 declared that they gave him no sort of pleasure, 
 that his ears were of a reprobate cast that greatly 
 preferred the simplicity of a ballad. Poets often 
 possess no other faculty in common with the musi- 
 cian than that of rhythm. Dr. Johnson was a poet 
 of Pope's description, and Sir Walter Scott, the 
 greatest writer of his age, has said, he had not an 
 ear for anything in music beyond a ballad tune, or 
 a march. The immortal Byron, it is said by Mr. 
 Moore, felt no gratification from music, except from 
 a simple air. While it is equally true that the lyric 
 bards, Shakspeare, Milton and Moore, have written 
 with all the feelings of the most sensitive musician." 
 
364 'Nortn-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 Painting will not do, for although the conception 
 may be grand, the picture in proportion, shape and 
 color true to nature, still it is a thought, and there 
 remains the emotion it produces unexpressed. 
 
 Although there is an emotional region indepen- 
 dent of thought, in which takes place a never 
 ceasing play and endless succession of emotions, 
 simple and complex, "it will be necessary to put 
 emotion itself into the crucible of thought, that the 
 ground of contact between it and sound may be 
 shown." 
 
 I. Elation" aistd Depression. — When a man is 
 suflfering from intense thirst, in a sandy desert., the 
 emotional font within him is at a low ebb ; but, on 
 catching sight of a pool of water not far off, he 
 instantly becomes highly elated, and, forgetting his, 
 fatigue, he hastens forward upon a new platform of 
 feeling. On arriving at the water he finds it too salt 
 to drink, and his emotion, from the highest elation, 
 sinks at once to the deepest depression. 
 
 IT. Yelooitt. — At this crisis our traveler sees a 
 man with a water skin coming toward him, and his 
 hopes instantly rise ; and, running up to him, he 
 relates how his hopes have been suddenly raised, 
 and as suddenly cast down ; but long before his 
 words have expressed his meaning, he has, with 
 
Teachers' Plssocialion. 3ti5 
 
 the utmost mental velocity, repassed through the 
 emotions of elation and depression. 
 
 III. Intensitt. — As he drinks, his emotion in- 
 creases in intensity, up to a point where his thirst 
 becomes quenched, and every drop taken after that . 
 is accompanied by less and less pungent or intense 
 feeling. 
 
 IV. Variety. — Up to this time his emotion has 
 been comparatively simple ; but a suffering com- 
 panion now arrives, and as he hands to him the 
 grateful cup his emotions become complex, that is 
 to say, he experiences a variety of emotions simul- 
 taneously — contentment, gratitude and joy. 
 
 V. Form. — These emotions, it will be seen, suc- 
 ceed each other in one order rather than another, 
 and are at length combined with a definite purpose 
 in certain fixed proportions. 
 
 Now in music, corresponding to elation and 
 depression, we have the musical scales, the human 
 voice giving any gradation of sound between the 
 tones of the scale, we thus can get any degree 
 of elation or depression. For tielocity we have 
 the relative length of sounds, the rapidity with 
 which sounds follow each other, and the varying 
 tempos. For intensity, we have the degrees of 
 loudness or softness, the crescendo, diminuendo, etc. 
 
366 North-Easlern Ohio 
 
 For variety, "we have only to think of the sim- 
 plest duet or trio, to realize how perfectly music 
 possesses this powerful property of complex emo- 
 tion :" and we have only to glance at a score 
 of Beethoven or Spohr, to see how almost any 
 emotion, however complex, is susceptible of musi- 
 cal expression. For forTn, "Nothing is more 
 common .than to hear it said that Mozart is master 
 of form, that Beethoven is obscure, etc. Of course 
 what is meant is, that in the arrangement and 
 development of the musical phrases there is a greater 
 or less fitness of proportion, producing an effect of 
 unity or incoherence, as the case may be." We 
 thus have in music, it will be seen, properties corres- 
 ponding to the emotional properties, with symbols 
 to represent them, and music thus arises to the great 
 dignity of the royal art — medium of the emotions. 
 
 (If it were asked just here if the benefits of music 
 were designed for all, the answer would certainly 
 be, in Yankee fashion. Can all feel? Do all have 
 emotions ?) 
 
 Now what is music? It is common to speak of 
 the "lark's gay song," the "nightingale's trill," 
 the "cuckoo's tender notes," the mournful song of 
 the wind, etc.; but when these are so exactly imi- 
 tated as to deceive the birds themselves, with a 
 
Teachers' Association. 367 
 
 whistle in a tumbler of water, a short whistle with 
 the mouth, by boys whistling upon their fists, or 
 the sound of the wind by compressing one's lips 
 and moaning, they cease under such circumstances 
 to be either musical or romantic. "The harmo- 
 nies of nature are purely metaphorical. There is 
 no music in nature, neither melody nor harmony. 
 Music is man' s creation. He does not reproduce in 
 music any combination of sounds he has heard or 
 could possibly hear in the natural world, as the 
 painter transfers to his canvas the forms and tints 
 he sees around him. No! the musician seizes the 
 rough element of sound and compels it to work 
 his will." 
 
 "Music, properly defined, is a science which 
 teaches the properties, dependences and relations 
 of melodious sounds, and is divided into two parts — 
 theoretical and practical. Theoretical music com- 
 prehends the knowledge of harmony and modula- 
 tion, and the laws of that successive arrangement of 
 sound by which an air or melody is produced. 
 Practical music is the art of bringing this knowl- 
 edge and those laws into operation, by actually 
 disposing of the sounds, both in combination and 
 succession, so as to produce the desired effect; 
 and this is composition. It also extends to the 
 
368 NorlJi-Easlern Ohio 
 
 performance of these melodious and harmonious 
 compositions. 
 
 "The composer, after knowing the laws of com- 
 position, and, by long practice, having taught his 
 emotions to flow out through the channel of 
 musical sound, seizes upon some element in nature, 
 under favoring circumstances, as the wailing of the 
 wind, the hum of insect life, song of birds, the cries 
 of animals, the natural inflections of the human 
 voice, and the various noises of nature, and a ' song 
 without words,' a symphony or a musical compo- 
 sition of some other character is the result." 
 
 Or more properly, as vocal music is commonly 
 understood, the poem or thought presented to the 
 composer produces appropriate emotions, which 
 through the channel of the words flow out in 
 musical cadences, along the rhythmic lines, until, 
 like man and wife "the twain are joined as 
 one." 
 
 (A passing thought will suggest, that much, then, 
 of what is called poetry is not fit material for 
 musical composition ; and if only that which is fit 
 were used, what a havoc would be made with the 
 hymn books ! and what a host of unhappy mar- 
 riages would be prevented !) 
 
 From the foregoing it is evident that music is not 
 
Teachers' sissocialion. 369 
 
 only the art medium of emotion, but that con- 
 versely, by properly understanding and interpreting 
 a composition and catching its true spirit, it becomes 
 the most certain instrument by which any and all 
 emotions may be produced. History is full of 
 heroic deeds and human sacrifices caused by its 
 potent power. What myriads of beautiful and 
 tender things, what countless thoughts of some of 
 earth's greatest men must be forever hidden from 
 him whose education has denied this soul culti- 
 vation, and the great benefits a theoretical and 
 practical knowledge of its art medium confers. 
 What an irreparable deprivation ! 
 
 The correct manner of studying a composition, 
 and what a proper rendering of it is, are also 
 clearly indicated by the foregoing. Also it must 
 be evident that singing, understandingly, legit- 
 imate songs, and thus coming in contact with the 
 purest, loftiest and holiest thoughts, is one of the 
 mightiest agencies in lifting man God-ward ; and 
 when it is considered that music is exceedingly 
 attractive — from its very nature a natural element 
 for man — the wonder is that its insinuating power 
 for good is not more universally employed ; and it 
 is surprising, indeed, that any one, with a pretense 
 to education should claim that it is a "special gift 
 
 24 
 
370 "Norlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 to a favored few," and use Ms influence in keeping 
 it out of the channels through which it might flow 
 to every child. Ignorance of its benefits can be his 
 only excuse. 
 
 The wretched, abnormal lives of many musicians 
 is often used as an argument against learning to 
 sing. These cases show, usually, that only this one 
 side has been cultivated, and hence the man is as 
 far from rational development, as he would be 
 physically, should he fetter every other member 
 and exercise only a leg or an arm. 
 
 That all can learn to sing, to the limit of their 
 voices ; and understand its theory according to the 
 power of their minds ; and enjoy its beauties to the 
 extent of their capacity to feel, is abundantly proven 
 by the thousands of schools in our own country and 
 Germany, in which you will not find a pupil who 
 does not sing ; and many pupils too of that class 
 who claimed that ' ' the Almighty forgot them and 
 their forefathers when he distributed his divine gift 
 among the children of men." It is true in this, as 
 in other studies, that all pupils do not seem to grasp 
 the truth and show forth the practical results at the 
 same time or with equal facility, or even at once 
 show that any benefit whatever has been derived 
 from it. But behold the sower broadcasting seed; it 
 
Teachers' Association. 371 
 
 is covered in the groand and lies for days without 
 sf^k.of life ; by and by a blade peeps up here and 
 there— not all spears at once ; after a little, living 
 spots are seen as though the sower's work had 
 been poorly done; a little longer and the tardy 
 ones show themselves — the field is matted over 
 with a carpet of green, which, although beautiful, 
 only gives promise of the blossom, and the rich, 
 ripe harvest to come. 
 
 That teaching music to all is entirely practicable 
 and will pay, no one who will visit the schools of 
 Cleveland and witness a lesson in music will deny. 
 He will see the pupils writing correctly melodies 
 they never before heard, and which are sung by the 
 teacher, thus indicating a quickness of perception, 
 comparison, concentration, exercise of memory and 
 thorough understanding of the subject that is 
 rarely if ever equaled in any other study — will 
 see them sing readily at sight new songs, difficult 
 in proportion to the grade — will hear the smooth, 
 ringing voices, and feel the thrill that hearty, intelli- 
 gent singing alone can give. 
 
 Further, consider that in the high schools, by 
 taking one, two, three or more for each part, 
 making your selection, almost with blinded eyes, 
 and you may have a choir of any desired size, that 
 
372 ?{orlh-Easlern OMo 
 
 will sing well, ordinary music for church, social 
 or other occasions. 
 
 Notice that, on the streets, the ribald song is 
 never heard from a school boy. Go into the 
 thousands of homes and hear the parents, the little 
 children, the servants, humming the beautiful school 
 songs, and see the parent and servant, for reproof, 
 often using the truth taught in these songs 
 instead of the harsh word and angry stroke, and 
 ask does it pay ? Hear the recommendation of 
 the most eminent physicians as to the healthful- 
 ness of singing. See how it lightens toil, witness 
 its soothing power in affliction, its cheering 
 companionship in solitude, its consolation in loss, 
 its power in loving sympathy, and ask will it pay 
 to cultivate such a friend % It needs no argument to 
 prove that people will have music of some kind. 
 The organization of society demands it, then why 
 not cultivate it properly, so that it will be a real 
 thing and not a pretense? " Will it pay the poor 
 children who spend only two or three years in 
 school to study music?" Music of some sort 
 they will have ; if they do not learn to read 
 music they must learn their tunes from others; 
 as they are not admitted to what is termed refined 
 society, they are likely to know only the poorly 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 373 
 
 learned odds and ends of tunes, picked up from 
 the street musician, or the still more insipid jigs 
 and quadrilles of the dancing-room fiddler. By 
 learning to read music, if only well enough to 
 "pick out a tune" by themselves, they have 
 the power, and will never fail to use it, to sup- 
 ply themselves with new and good music, and thus, 
 as music in books and various forms can be pur- 
 chased so cheaply, they have within themselves a 
 means of affording pure pastime and pleasure, and 
 consequently are not only prevented from the low 
 indulgences that poverty and idleness are sure to 
 bring, but by this very means are brought into con- 
 tact with the piire and good, and thus put in the 
 way of elevation to true manhood and womanhood. 
 
 Again a taste for good music will be formed, and 
 through the necessary practice to sing smoothly and 
 with expression, they are brought in contact with 
 refinement and are led away from coarseness. 
 
 Not teach music to the poor ! Prevent them 
 from obtaining the only means their circumstances 
 will allow of making their lives enjoyable, virtu- 
 ous and happy ! No ! a thousand times no ! but 
 rather, after teaching them reading, writing and 
 arithmetic, let it be the aim to give them this power. 
 
 Respecting the oft-repeated assertion that "the 
 
374 J\forlh-Easlcrn Ohio 
 
 common-school teacher is usually not musical, and 
 therefore not fit to do the work," I would say, that 
 teachers, as a rule, have good sense and aptness ; 
 and when they comprehend that the work is to be 
 done by them, they will seek to do it well, and will 
 avail themselves of whatever helps are at their 
 command, properly to qualify for the work. If, 
 therefore, they are properly instructed and guided, 
 excellent results will soon be seen. Oftentimes the 
 professional musician is not the best teacher. From 
 his lack of knowledge of "teaching as an art," his 
 mistaken notions respecting who should learn, and 
 how ; his lack of sympathy for the dullard ; and, 
 lastly, by his irritability and nervousness, he is 
 unfitted for the work. Now, put the regular teacher, 
 with her helps — her tact, her ambition to learn, that 
 she may do it well, and, "last but not least," her 
 warm sympathy — over against the majority of pro- 
 fessionals, and which would you choose for the 
 instruction of children ? Of course, if our teachers 
 were good musicians, it would be much better ; 
 but the demand once made — the supply will be 
 forthcoming. 
 
 Among the reasons other than feasibility and 
 cheapness, why music should be taught in the public 
 schools is, that in all of its departments of voice 
 
Teachers' Association. 375 
 
 cultivation, reading and feeling, it is a growth, 
 and it is only when it becomes a part of the child, 
 growing with its growth, that it is fully possessed. 
 It may be commenced later and give much profit, 
 but never to the same degree as when commenced 
 in childhood. 
 
 How sTiall it he taught ? Tunes, longer or shorter, 
 like paragraphs, chapters or treatises, are composed 
 of individual expressions, or phrases and sentences ; 
 and are susceptible of as many or more divisions, 
 simple, complex and compound, as they. These 
 expressions, likewise, are composed of smaller 
 groups and individual sounds. It is thoughts we 
 clothe in words ; so it should be "musical thoughts" 
 we sing. While the word or sound must be learned, 
 spelled, pronounced, and its properties and office 
 understood, yet it is only a thread in the garment 
 which clothes the idea. 
 
 Manifestly, then, the course to be pursued in 
 teaching music is very similar to that in teaching 
 any other language. The child, before it goes to 
 school, from hearing its elders, learns to pronounce 
 words, talk, and, in an imperfect way, think. So it 
 should learn to sing songs, tunes and think musical 
 thoughts. But in the majority of cases it does not 
 so learn and, practically, when it comes to school it 
 has entered a new world and is an infant, 
 
376 'North-Eastern Ohio 
 
 Where naught is known, 
 Nor e'en the seed is sown. 
 
 It matters not at what age the study is com- 
 menced, all who begin are infants — a very difficult 
 and unpalatable thing for large boys and girls to 
 appreciate ; and hence one of the greatest obstacles 
 in the way of an immediate introduction of music 
 into all schools. But once this obstacle surmounted, 
 and the road fairly entered, to reach the end only 
 requires proper guiding, and the traveling is step by 
 step over the intervening leagues through a way 
 beautiful in scenery, bordered with flowers and 
 redolent with nature's minstrelsy. But to return — 
 beginning, then, with a cipher in knowledge for capi- 
 tal, only the materials — body and mind — nature has 
 furnished to work with, it is evident that the first 
 work is imitation. Hear songs (listen to stories, 
 carrying out the parallel of reading); learn to repeat 
 sounds of different pitch and power (repeat words); 
 sing motives (small adjuncts). Sections (now com- 
 plex modifiers), phrases (sentences), and finally 
 entire melodies (complete paragraphs). It must be 
 hearing and doing, in those things and in that way, 
 which will impart correct thoughts and will form 
 correct habits of thinking and of expression. 
 
 This imitative exercise should be continued from 
 period to period, grade to grade, until the memory 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 377 
 
 becomes strong enough to retain an entire song 
 from once hearing ; until the correct manner of 
 phrasing is acquired ; until individual sounds can be 
 correctly sung and connected ; the proper quality of 
 tone used, and in short until the pupil can remem- 
 ber and sing a song in a manner that will convey 
 completely to the hearer, without criticism as to man- 
 ner, the author's meaning. But to stop here would' 
 leave the pupil entirely dependent on a teacher. 
 While he is learning from his teacher how to do, he 
 should be constantly gaining strength that he may 
 go alone eventually, and hence from the first he 
 must learn theoretically to classify sounds in their 
 relative length, pitch and power ; must learn the 
 appearance and names of the characters which 
 represent or indicate these properties ; must learn 
 the laws of rhythm, and step by step become pro- 
 ficient in practice, that, as in reading, first easy 
 stories, then more difiicult ones, and thus on until 
 the most difficult songs may be sung readily at 
 sight, although profound music may require study 
 to fathom its meaning. And as in reading, cor- 
 relative with the singing comes the writing. This 
 should be begun with the earliest lessons and grow 
 with the growth of the pupil, until he can write 
 with readiness what he hears and thinks. Another 
 
378 North-Easlern Ohio 
 
 feature of singing is expression, without which tunes 
 are but pretty noises, rhythmically and melodically 
 arranged — a house without an inhabitant ; a body 
 without a soul. Here again, as in reading, the song 
 may be run over hastily to catch the meaning, but 
 when sung for the benefit of one's self or others it 
 should be given out as a living thing, a part of the 
 very soul. 
 
 Thus to produce his own or another's tune 
 thoughts requires also gradual and progressive 
 training, and like the singing voice training. Sing- 
 ing at sight and writing, are not learned until like 
 food, appropriated by the system, they become a 
 part of the being. 
 
 I have thus sketched, as it were, the ground 
 plan, and only indicated what this great building 
 should be, referring to a future essay for detailed 
 statement of all apartments, finish and processes. 
 But enough has been said, I hope, to give you an 
 idea of its grand proportions, and the entire practi- 
 cability of every corporation possessing it. And 
 may I not trust that you, leading educators, whose 
 influence is so powerfal, may not only be the 
 supervising architects in its erection in your several 
 communities, but also lend the aid of your cunning 
 hands to under workmen, until it shall stand forth 
 
Teachers' dissociation. 379 
 
 in all its magnificence one of the chief attractions to 
 visitors, and the pride and glory of your people. 
 
 A SYSTEM OF TEACHING DRAWING FOR 
 THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 
 
 BT FRANK ABOBN, CLEVELAND. 
 
 The purpose of this paper is to present simply 
 such of the cardinal points of a system of teaching 
 drawing in the common schools as will enable this 
 Association to judge of its merits as a force in prac- 
 tical education, and to form a just estimate of the 
 degree of success with which it would meet, in the 
 hands of the regular class teacher. It will not be 
 expedient, therefore, to enter into any discussion, 
 either of the intrinsic or relative value of the study 
 of drawing, or any comparison of this with any 
 other system of teaching it. 
 
 In order that there may be a clear understanding 
 of the plan of instruction, and the principles which 
 underlie it, it will be necessary, first, to settle what 
 should be the ultimate result sought. 
 
 Drawing being a pictorial language or mode of 
 expression, by its study results similar to those 
 obtained by the study of written language might 
 
380 J\forlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 reasonably be expected, and every practical edu- 
 cator, to be consistent, must demand, that if drawing 
 is to have a place in the common schools, and be 
 ranked among the elementary branches of education, 
 it shall be so taught that every pupil may acquire 
 the ability to express himself by lines. 
 
 It cannot reasonably be expected, either by this 
 or any other method of teaching drawing, to make 
 a Michael Angelo, a Turner, or a JSTast even, of each 
 pupil, however good the method or however indus- 
 trious, earnest, thoughtful or ingenious the teacher 
 may be, any more than it is expected to make a 
 Carlyle, a Goethe, or even a Mark Twain of each 
 pupil by the study of written language. But we 
 do teach each child, who is not mentally deficient, 
 not only to read, but to express himself in written 
 characters, to a degree of accuracy and finish 
 depending upon his advantages for education, his 
 industry, and his natural ability. 
 
 Before a system of teaching drawing can be pro- 
 duced, by which the average pupil can be taught 
 how to express himself by lines, with the same 
 degree of success that he is taught to express him- 
 self in written characters, or before we can judge 
 as to the merits of any system which is presented 
 to our notice, we must come to an understanding 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 381 
 
 of what it is necessary to know, in order to be able 
 to draw ; next, we must ascertain what course of 
 study will lead most directly to the pupil' s acquir- 
 ing the necessary information ; and, finally we must 
 ascertain how so to present the subject, that the 
 pupils may acquire the maximum of practical 
 knowledge and skill in the least time. 
 
 One knows how to draw when he knows how to 
 make the lines, and what kind of lines to make ; as 
 well as where, in what direction, and of what length 
 to make them, so that they shall together illustrate 
 or express the idea it is intended that they shall 
 illustrate or express. 
 
 In order to lay out our course of study then, in 
 this branch, let us separate all kinds of drawing 
 into classes ; the basis of such classification being, 
 the relation which the lines in the drawing have to 
 the lines which they represent, and then classify all 
 subjects to be drawn under these different heads. 
 Drawings may be divided into two general classes 
 or kinds ; first, such as contain only lines, which 
 either really are,' or are understood to be, in one 
 plane, and that plane parallel to the plane of the 
 picture ; second, drawings whose lines are the pro- 
 jections of lines in space upon one or more planes of 
 projection ; that is, drawings in which the lines 
 
382 'North-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 have positions relative to each other, depending 
 upon the position of the lines in the object which 
 they represent, relative to the plane of projection. 
 
 There are two methods of projection in common 
 use. One of these is the projection of lines in space 
 upon one plane by converging rays, or, as it is com- 
 monly called, perspective, or object drawing, and 
 the other is the projection of lines in space upon 
 two or more planes, by parallel lines, or, as it is 
 commonly called, mechanical drawing, industrial 
 drawing, or orthographic projections. The object 
 of the first or perspective drawing is to represent 
 objects on a flat surface as they appear. The object 
 of the second method of projections is to represent 
 each line and part of a line in an object, that its true 
 dimensions may be accurately ascertained from the 
 drawing. 
 
 The classification of all drawings being complete, 
 we may now proceed to arrange all subjects to be 
 drawn under these heads ; as drawings of the first- 
 class (from the flat) may be geometrical figures, as 
 squares, triangles, circles, etc., either singly or in 
 groups. They may be conventional ornament for 
 surface decoration.* They may be the copy of any 
 
 * Lest there should be some mlsunderstaading as to what Is meant by 
 the term conventional ornament for surface decoration, I will say that 
 the term as here used, signifies any surface decoration which is the ideal 
 
Teachers' Association. 383 
 
 picture, design, diagram, or other drawing. Draw- 
 ings of the second-class include the representation 
 of all objects, whether by perspective or ortho- 
 graphic projections. 
 
 Perspective drawing includes the representation 
 of all objects, and it will be convenient for us to 
 separate them into groups depending upon the 
 nature of their lines of contour ; such as, first, 
 straight line objects ; second, such objects as contain 
 both Curved and straight lines ; and third, such 
 objects as have no straight lines. All objects may 
 also be represented by orthographic projections, 
 though commonly used only by mechanics, engi- 
 neers and architects for industrial purposes, or by 
 mathematicians as an aid in the investigation and 
 explanation of mathematical truths. 
 
 It is necessary now to ascertain iipon what 
 depends the ability to represent each class of sub- 
 jects just named. To represent squares, triangles, 
 etc. , the pupil must first have a clear conception of 
 what the figure is. Next, he must understand the 
 kind of line composing it, and, finally, he milst be 
 able to make the kind of lines required. 
 
 To make conventional ornament, the pupil must 
 
 representation of any object or objects, making no attempt at the expres- 
 sion of solidity, though, exaggerating, perhaps, some if not all the 
 characteristics of the object or objects represented. 
 
384 Norih-Easiern Ohio 
 
 first be able to make the lines required ; second, he 
 must be able to make ideal representations of natural 
 objects ; and, third, he must know that ornamental 
 designs must be appropriate to the character of the 
 object ornamented, and that each design should 
 embody some sentiment, which is also appropriate. 
 The pupil, to make ornamental designs, to any 
 purpose, should be able to make and so combine 
 ideal forms for ornamentation, that these ends may 
 be secured, at least, in some degree ; otherwise he 
 will be only a copyist at the best. 
 
 To make a true copy of any drawing it is 
 necessary to be able to make lines, which are 
 exactly proportional in length, which have the same 
 relative direction, and which are exactly similar in 
 character and quality of stroke to the corresponding 
 lines in the copy. 
 
 To make a perspective drawing of any object in 
 which there are straight lines only, the pupil must 
 be able, first, to ascertain the direction and length 
 of each line visible in the object, measured in a 
 plane parallel to the plane of the picture ; second, 
 he must be able to make lines of given length and 
 direction; third, be able to "read" from the object 
 the position the lines in the drawing should have, 
 relative to each other, to look like the lines in the 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 385 
 
 object which they represent ; and finally, under- 
 stand the structure of the object studied. 
 
 To be able to represent objects in which the line 
 of contour is a mixed line, or composed of both 
 curved and straight lines, the pupil must be able to 
 represent straight line objects ; he must understand 
 the eifect of the position of curved lines relative to 
 the plane of the picture, upon the nature of the lines 
 which represent them in the picture ; and, also, be 
 familiar with the structure and characteristics of the 
 object to be represented. 
 
 To represent animal forms the pupil must be able 
 to represent objects, whose line of contour is a 
 mixed line, and understand the anatomy, habits 
 and characteristics of the animal studied. 
 
 To represent any object by orthographic pro- 
 jections, the pupil must understand descriptive 
 geometry, or be able to project lines in space upon 
 planes of projections by parallel lines. • 
 
 Having classed all drawing under two heads, and 
 having arranged all subjects to be drawn under 
 these heads, and having ascertained upon what 
 depends the ability to represent each class of 
 subjects, it will be necessary, next, to ascertain the 
 relative teaching value of the study of each class of 
 subjects, and then to arrange the different classes in 
 
 25 
 
386 J\forth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 sucli order that the study of each class shall so 
 succeed and so supplement the other, that each step 
 shall be such a steady, gradual growth toward the 
 desired end as will give the average pupil the most 
 comprehensive knowledge of the subject in the 
 least time, and such, that if he withdraws from 
 school at any time, all that he does know will be 
 practically available, and at the same time be the 
 foundation upon which he can build as he has time, 
 opportunity and inclination. 
 
 By the study of geometrical figures, as squares, 
 triangles, etc., the pupil will learn how to make 
 lines of a given length, direction and position, and 
 because the ability to make any drawing depends 
 primarily upon the ability to make lines of known 
 length, direction and position the study of this class 
 of subjects should precede all others. 
 
 Rejecting the study of drawing by copying, on 
 the same principle, and for the same reason, that I 
 would reject the study of arithmetic by copying the 
 solution of problems, and deferring the study of 
 design until such time as the pupil has learned to 
 draw from objects, because the ability to design 
 depends, in a good degree, at least, upon the ability 
 to represent natural forms from the object, the 
 next step in the course of study should be the 
 
Teachers' Association. 387 
 
 representation of straight lines in space on a flat sur- 
 face as they appear. 
 
 By the study of straight line objects the pupil 
 will learn how to ascertain the apparent direction, 
 length and position of straight lines in space, and 
 besides this he will learn more concerning the form 
 and construction of objects, and also the observing 
 faculty will be cultivated to a much greater degree 
 than can be done by any other study. The study of 
 straight lines as they appear should immediately 
 succeed the study of straight lines as they are, and 
 will, therefore, form the second step in the course, of 
 study. 
 
 Objects of the second-class — namely, such as 
 those whose line of contour is a mixed line, may 
 be divided into two sub-classes, as artificial and 
 natural objects. For the same reason that the pro- 
 ducts of man's labor and skill are more easily 
 reproduced than the products of nature, even in the 
 imitation of form simply, so the representation of 
 tools and furniture requires less skill and study 
 than the representation of trees and flowers. 
 
 By the study of the former, the pupil will learn 
 the effect which the* position of the less subtile of 
 the curved lines relative to the picture plane has upon 
 their appearance in the picture ; the sense of form, 
 
388 T^orth-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 proportion and construction will become clearer and 
 broader, and the observing faculty will be further 
 developed. It should, therefore, immediately suc- 
 ceed the study of straight line objects, and form the 
 third step in the course of study. 
 
 The representation of natural forms, either vege- 
 table or mineral, would naturally come next in 
 order, if the only object were to teach the pupil to 
 draw. But, as its study would require a great 
 variety, as well as quantity of models, or much 
 out-of-door work, it would be better now, since the 
 pupil should have acquired, by this time, such a 
 degree of skill in drawing from objects, that he can 
 represent any artificial household utensil, or its 
 equivalent at sight, to teach him how to adapt vege- 
 table forms to ornamentation ; first in the flat and 
 then in relief, and let the representation of the exact 
 forms themselves, occupy, as it were, a second or 
 subordinate place. The study of design, therefore, 
 forms the fourth step in the course. 
 
 The study of the third class of objects — animal 
 forms— carries the study of lines and forms to the 
 utmost limit, and besides that, and better than all, 
 it conducts the pupil to the very centre of art cul- 
 ture, which is the study of the human form. To 
 represent objects of this class requires a knowledge 
 
Teachers' jlssocialion. 389 
 
 of the anatomy, habits and characteristics of the 
 animal studied, and is a limitless field for work. 
 The study of animal forms belongs, more especially, 
 however, to the domain of the art school. It may 
 be, that the time will come, when it can, and should, 
 be studied in connection with physiology ; but under 
 the existing state of affairs it would seem, that as 
 there is so much else that is yet unlearned and for 
 which there is great need in the mechanical way, 
 that its study should be postponed until such 
 time as the pupils of the common schools, in the 
 higher grades at least, can make working drawings 
 of simple structures in plan and elevation. 
 
 The study of projections is one which, to master 
 thoroughly, requires a mind somewhat disciplined, 
 and much hard study ; but the pupils of the com- 
 mon schools can be taught to make the drawings for 
 dwelling houses in plan and elevation, to that 
 degree of success, that they are able to make 
 drawings which shall so express their ideas, that a 
 professional architect can read from them, exactly 
 what the designer wants, and enable the designer in 
 his turn to know if he gets what he wants, and if 
 not wherein lies the difiiculty. 
 
 So far we have determined only the order in 
 which each division of the subject should be taken 
 
390 J^orlJi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 up, and to what purpose it is to be studied. Our 
 aim now should be to devise some method by which 
 these ends can be best attained ; but before we do 
 that let me restate briefly, in their order, the subjects 
 to be studied and the object aimed at in each. 
 
 First, the study of geometrical figures, as squares, 
 and combinations of squares, etc., to the end that 
 the pupil may understand lines, and 'be able to 
 make them having a given length, direction and 
 position. Second, the study of the representation 
 of straight line objects on a flat surface, to the end 
 that the pupil may learn how to ascertain the 
 apparent direction, length, and position of lines in 
 space measured in a plane parallel to the plane of 
 the picture, and be able to make lines on the picture 
 plane, whose real direction, length and position in 
 the picture are the apparent length, direction and 
 position of the corresponding line in the object. 
 Third, the study of simple artificial structures, to 
 the end that the pupil may learn how to represent 
 such lines as he cannot readily measure — curved 
 lines — in their apparent length, direction and posi- 
 tion. Fourth, the study of natural forms, and thieir 
 application to ornamental design, to the end that 
 the papil may be led to study nature, and by that 
 means, learn to adapt natural forms to the purposes 
 
Teachers' J'issociaiion. 391 ■ 
 
 of ornamentation. Mfih, the study of projections, 
 to the end that the pupil may learn to make 
 drawings of simple objects, from which the true 
 dimension and relative position of each line and 
 part of line may be accurately ascertained. Finally, 
 to use the knowledge of drawing, so far acquired, 
 for the purposes of culture' and as a means of 
 education. 
 
 We have now come to the question : How shall 
 this be done ? In answer to which it may be said : 
 pursue the study of each step in order, beginning 
 systematically with the simplest thing that it is 
 essential the pupil should know, and of which he 
 has not already a clear conception, and progressing 
 thence, steadily on to the particular end in view. 
 
 Before we can plan a system of teaching drawing, 
 that will enable us to attain the ultimate end in view, 
 we must come to an understanding of what is to be 
 the immediate end ; that is, is it to be the immediate 
 end to have each pupil execute each drawing by a 
 tediously labored process of erasing and puttering ? 
 or is it to have the average pupil understand the 
 power and use of lines, and to know what he is 
 doing, what he is doing it for, and be able to execute 
 actual problems, and express or illustrate actual 
 things promptly and eflfectually, as he uses hiS' 
 
393 T^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 knowledge of arithmetic, and his ability to write in 
 every-day life ? I should say the latter ; for, if tliere 
 is any one thing that stands in the way of the suc- 
 cessful teaching of drawing, it is the feeling on the 
 part of parents, teachers, pupils and the public gen- 
 erally, that there must be, at each stage" of the pro- 
 cess, something pretty to show ; and, perhaps,' — by 
 the teachers doing the more difficult parts, and the 
 pupils doing an indefinite amount of rubbing and 
 puttering — something be done,, by the more apt of 
 the pupils, which will be worthy the adulation of 
 admiring friends and an elaborate frame. For my 
 part, I think that there has been quite enough of 
 this done already. I consider that a book full of 
 nicely worked examples in arithmetic, the whole 
 work being either copied, or executed by the pupil 
 under the direction and with the help of the teacher, 
 just as good a criterion of an understanding of arith- 
 metic as I consider a similar book full of similarly 
 executed drawings a criterion of a knowledge of 
 drawing. 
 
 We aim by the study of arithmetic to give the 
 pupil such a knowledge of the subject as will enable 
 him to use it without help, promptly and effectually. 
 The science of lines is no more difficult of compre- 
 hension to the average pupil in the common schools 
 
Teachers' :issocialion. 393 
 
 than is the science of numbers, and if we follow the 
 same principles in the study of the one, that we do 
 in the study of the other, we shall arrive at similar 
 results. 
 
 Let us suppose that we have a class of little 
 people before us, who have been in school only long 
 enough to have become acquainted with the teacher, 
 and that the teacher is thoroughly master of the sit- 
 uation. The teacher is to give a drawing lesson, and 
 each pupil has his slate on his desk or in his lap 
 before him. The teacher says, "John, bring me 
 your slate." John will come up with a will, yet 
 gently. The teacher now says, "John, put your 
 finger on the upper right-hand corner of your slate." 
 John will look up with What do you mean? 
 written on his countenance; if the request is made 
 again, he will hang his head and look silly, and 
 finally he will not do it. Why not? Simply 
 because Tie does not Tcnow what the teacher means. 
 He does not know his slate. It becomes necessary 
 now to teach the pupils the parts of the slate by 
 name, in order that whatever they make may be, 
 at least, in the right place, whether what they make 
 is right or wrong. The pupils should be taught, in 
 object lessons, to know the parts of the slate by 
 name ; as, the sides, the corners and the faces. To 
 
394 Morth-Eastern Ohio 
 
 do this eflEectually such a lesson must not be confined 
 to the slate, but the pupils must learn that the terms 
 applied to thetr slates apply equally well to their 
 desks, the end of the room, the blackboard, a book, r 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Supposing now that the pupils know the parts of 
 the slate, the next thing is to teach them lines. 
 Lines are of three kinds, straight, crooked and 
 curved, and each of these has position, direction and 
 length. Curved lines being of many kinds, and so 
 difficult of explanation to little children, and the 
 understanding of them not being an immediate 
 necessity, as the study of drawing can proceed for a 
 considerable time without the pupils knowing much 
 about them, it would seem desirable not to attempt, 
 to teach curved lines until the pupil has a clear 
 understanding of straight lines, as well as a knowl- 
 edge of how to use them. The study of curved 
 lines, then, being omitted, for the present, we have, 
 first, to teach the pupils the difference between a 
 crooked line and a straight one, by showing them 
 how to test. the straightness of lines with the ruler. 
 
 The pupils should next be taught the signification 
 and application of the forms horizontal and vertical ; . 
 that is, that they mean only fixed directions, and- 
 are applicable to anything which has direction.. 
 
Teachers' Association. 395 
 
 The pupils are inclined to confound the terms 
 horizontal and vertical with straight ; and the point 
 should be, by object lessons, illustration and con- 
 versation, to have the pupils clearly perceive the 
 signification of each of the terms just mentioned. 
 In the lessons on the slate the pupils have learned 
 position, and it now remains to develop in their 
 minds some definite ideas of length. To do this, let 
 them be taught how to test the length of lines to 
 ascertain if they are too long or too short, and how 
 to correct them if they are too long or too short. To 
 do this each pupil should have some standard of 
 measure with which to test his work. The class 
 should now have practice in using the knowledge 
 so far acquired, by making figures from the black- 
 board — beginning with very simple figures and 
 proceeding to more complicated ones as they 
 acquire skill. These should be memory and 
 dictation lessons, as well as lessons in which the 
 pupils . use no test whatever, at regular intervals. 
 By a process similar to that I have just named, 
 the average child will acquire sufficient skill 
 to make quite complicated figures, composed of 
 straight lines which are one half inch, one inch 
 and two inches long in the first year of school, in 
 daily lessons of twenty minutes. The pupils now 
 
396 Korlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 understand lines in their real position, direction 
 and length, and they are ready to commence the 
 study of the representation, on a flat surface, of 
 straight lines in space as they appear. 
 
 As a first step in the study of lines as they 
 appear it is necessary to establish the position of 
 the picture plane. This, except in special cases, is 
 always understood to be perpendicular to a line 
 drawn from the eye to the picture centre. 
 
 Since the pupils have previously learned to draw 
 lines having a given direction, the next step in the 
 study of lines as they appear, is to afford the pupils 
 some means which will enable them to find a line 
 whose real direction is the apparent direction of 
 the line to be represented. 
 
 Since our arms are equally long, if we hold a 
 ruler out at arm's length between the tips of the 
 fingers of each hand, and look straight to the front, 
 the ruler, no matter how much it may slant, will be, 
 approximately, perpendicular to the line of. sight. 
 Now, if we hold a ruler at arm's length, and in 
 such a position, that the line we wish to represent is 
 seen along its edge, the direction of the ruler will 
 be the apparent direction of the line in space, and is 
 the direction the line in the picture should have to 
 look like the line to be represented. The pupils 
 
Teachers' Associaiion. 
 
 397 
 
 should have considerable practice in finding the 
 apparent direction of lines by studying lines drawn 
 on the blackboard, lines in the windows, doors, 
 etc., and then be taught how to find the apparent 
 length of lines. The pupils having been taiight how 
 to find the apparent length and direction of lines, 
 they are ready to begin the study of straight line 
 objects, commencing with a simple square frame. 
 The pupils should not only be able to draw each 
 object studied from the object, but should be able 
 to represent it in dictated positions without the 
 object. Besides this, they should so clearly under- 
 stand the effect of change of position on the 
 appearance of lines in space, that of two drawings 
 of the same object, the pupil should be able to tell 
 what was the difference in the position of the object 
 as represented by the two figures, as Figs. 1 and 3. 
 
 Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 
 
 The pupil should be able to tell at a glance that Fig. 
 ,1 represents a square higher above the level of the 
 
398 J\forih-Easlern Ohio 
 
 eye than Fig. 2, because the upper and lower lines, 
 slant more in Fig. 1 than they do in Fig. 3; that Fig. 
 1 represents the square as turned more than Fig. 2, 
 because it is narrower in proportion to its height 
 than Fig. 1; and that Fig. 1 represents a square that 
 is farther off than Fig. 2, because it is smaller. 
 
 The pupil should study straight line objects until 
 they can represent them understandingly, which 
 should be accomplished in the second school year, 
 by daily lessons of twenty minutes. 
 
 Suppose now that the pupils understand the 
 effect of the position of straight lines relative to the 
 picture plane upon their appearance in the picture, 
 the next point is to teach them the effect of the 
 position of curved lines relative to the plane of the 
 picture upon their appearance in the picture. To 
 do the latter let us try to ascertain what effect the 
 position of a circle relative to the plane of the 
 picture has upon its appearance. 
 
 We are enabled to see an obiect by rays of light 
 reflected from the object to the eye, and so long as 
 these rays do not pass from a denser to a rarer 
 medium, or the reverse, they pass in straight lines 
 from the object to the eye ; and when reflected 
 from a circle, they, together, form either a right 
 cone with a circular base, an oblique cone with a 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 399 
 
 circular base, or a triangular pencil of light. Now 
 if we pass a plane through this cone or pencil of 
 rays we shall cut out a circle, an ellipse, a parabola, 
 a hyperbola,* or a straight line. We shall cut out 
 a circle when the plane passed through the cone of 
 rays is parallel to the base. We shall, cut out an 
 ellipse when the plane passed through the cone is 
 at an angle with the base of the cone. We shall cut 
 out a straight line when the rays of light reflected 
 from the circle form a flat pencil of light. 
 
 To state the conditions briefly, under which a 
 circle will appear in the picture plane as a circle, an 
 ellipse or a straight line, I would say, that a circle 
 as appears a circle when it is parallel to the plane 
 of the picture. A circle appears as an ellipse when 
 any of its diameters are foreshortened. A circle 
 appears as a straight line when its width is fore- 
 shortened to zero. 
 
 Having ascertained what will represent a circle 
 under various conditions, it becomes necessary now 
 to find a way to teach the pupil to represent a circle 
 in any position. 
 
 To do this it is necessary that the pupils first 
 
 *NOTE. — We should not out out a parabola, or a hyperbola under 
 ■ordinary conditions— with the plane of the picture perpendicular to the 
 line of sight— and, therefore, we will not consider that they are among 
 the things to be taught. 
 
400 J^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 learri to make a circle. Next they should be taught 
 what an ellipse is, and to make one. The teacher 
 should not rely on the pupil's acquiring the ability 
 to make a circle or an ellipse by simply copying 
 them in an indefinite period, but should use every 
 means at his command to give the pupil a clear 
 conception of the form of each. 
 
 Now let a simple toy hoop, say two feet and a 
 half in diameter, be placed before the class, and let 
 them be taught how to find the direction of the long 
 diameter of the ellipse which will represent the cir- 
 cle in that position, by measuring across the hoop 
 through the centre, parallel to the plane of the pic- 
 ture in various directions, until the place is found 
 where the hoop seems to measure the most. Now 
 have them make a line on the slate having the 
 direction and length that the hoop seems to meas- 
 ure at that point. When this is done, have them 
 measure across the hoop in a direction perpendicu- 
 lar to that in which it seems to measure the most, 
 and then draw a line on the slate having this 
 direction perpendicular to the first, as well as 
 bisecting and being bisected by the first. Now 
 change the position of the hoop, and let the class 
 do the same again ; the teacher being himself active 
 in explaining, criticising and directing. Let the 
 
Teachers' :>lssocialwn. 401 
 
 class, practice finding the length and direction of 
 the diameters of the ellipse which will represent 
 the circle in various positions, until they under- 
 stand how to do it, and then have them find the 
 diameters and draw the ellipse to represent the 
 circle in various positions, and make something 
 out of each one, as a bowl, a vase, a cylinder, etc. 
 After a time let the class be taught to represent a 
 cylinder with lines, and after that with sticks pass- 
 ing through it perpendicular to its surface. When 
 this is done draw a wheel, and then a wagon. The 
 pupils should be taught how to represent a flat, a 
 concave and a convex surface, and so on until they 
 can represent any article of furniture readily. 
 
 From an industrial point of view the ability to 
 make, and an understanding of the principles of, 
 ornamental design immediately succeed in import- 
 ance the ability to express the form of actual objects 
 on a flat surface. It is, happily, that kind of draw- 
 ing for which the pupil is best prepared ; and I will 
 now attempt to explain to what purpose, as well as 
 how, it may be studied profitably in the common 
 schools. 
 
 In teaching ornamental design, it is necessary for 
 the pupil to learn, first, how to analyze designs 
 already- made, and then how to recombine the 
 
403 T^orin-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 elements thus obtained to make a new design. To 
 this end, let some simple design, that is large 
 enough to be seen in all its parts across the 
 school room, be placed before the class. After 
 the teacher has explained to the class, in a few- 
 words, something of the purpose, as well as the 
 value, of the study of design, then let him pro- 
 ceed to show the class that the design before them 
 is separable into parts or elements, and as he points 
 out each element let him draw it on the blackboard. 
 When this, is done, let the teacher erase all of his 
 work on the blackboard except the elements^ and 
 now while the idea is fresh in the minds of the 
 pupils, let them try to make the rough sketch of 
 an original arrangement of the same elements. Let 
 as many of these be reproduced on the blackboard 
 as is practicable, and after they have been examined 
 and criticised let the class be allowed time enough 
 to make a new design nicely on paper. 
 
 When this is done, let another design, perhaps 
 a little more elaborate, be taken as a model. This 
 design should first be copied by the pupils. In the 
 analysis the teacher should call upon the class to 
 separate the design into its general divisions, or, in 
 other words, find its base, and then separate each of 
 these general divisions into its elements. Each 
 
Teachers' Association. , 403 
 
 pupil who names a division or element should show 
 where it is in the model and draw its outline on 
 the blackboard. When the analysis is complete 
 proceed as before. 
 
 Several designs should be treated in this way, the 
 teacher helping less and less in each new design ; 
 but criticising the pupils' work more and more 
 closely as they acquire a better understanding of the 
 work and method of study. 
 
 When this method of making designs is under- 
 stood, let each pupil be given three or four pieces of 
 calico of different patterns, and let the teacher show 
 them how they may modify the elements of each, or 
 how they may combine one or more elements of 
 each of the patterns given them to make a new 
 design, and at the next lesson as many as can be 
 accommodated should reproduce their sketches on 
 the blackboard. When these have been compared 
 and criticised the class may be allowed time enough 
 to make a design nicely on paper. 
 
 So far the teacher has provided the material with 
 which the pupils have worked, and has directed 
 how it is to be used. It is desirable now, that the 
 pupils be thrown on their own resources, and to this 
 end, they should be directed to find their own ele- 
 ments, and out of them make a new design. 
 
404 J\forlh-Easlern Ohio 
 
 All the work up to this point has been, mainly, 
 the combining of given elements, and now the pupils 
 should be shown how to obtain elements from 
 nature for original design. To this end, let each 
 pupil be given some simple flower with its leaf and 
 stem. All should have similar flowers, in order 
 that any instruction given or any suggestion made 
 by the teacher, may apply alike to all. The 
 teacher should now represent parts of the flower 
 on the blackboard ; as, a profile of the flower 
 from that point in which its characteristics are best 
 expressed, the form of the calyx, the petal, the 
 stem cut in cross sections, etc., etc., until enough 
 elements have been drawn to illustrate the idea 
 This done let the teacher show the class how some 
 or all of the elements thus found may be used 
 to make a design for a border, a centre piece, or 
 any other pattern. When this is done, let the 
 class be given the problem to make a sketch of a 
 design for one of the three purposes just named, for 
 the next lesson. Let as many of these sketches as 
 is practicable be reproduced on the blackboard, and 
 when they have been sufficiently discussed let the 
 class make a new design, nicely, on paper. Now 
 let a design for another of the three purposes be 
 made from the same flower in the same way to match 
 the former. 
 
Teachers' :^ssociaUon. 405 
 
 When this design is completed let another 
 flower be studied in the same way, and so on until 
 the work is understood. 
 
 It should be the aim now to have the pupils make 
 designs that shall embody some idea or sentiment. 
 To make it plain to the pupils what is desired, let 
 each pupil be given some pattern in which this is 
 done, and have him analyze it and recombine its 
 elements to express the same idea by another 
 arrangement. When this is done let the pupils be 
 given a flower which is the symbol of the idea or 
 sentiment to be expressed, and have them make a 
 new design. When the pupils have laid hold of the 
 idea let problems be given them to make designs 
 which shall express or embody some given senti- 
 ment or idea, and send them to the fields to procure 
 their own material. 
 
 When the pupils have laid hold of the idea of 
 how designs for surface decoration are made, and 
 that every design should express something appro- 
 priate to the purpose for which it is intended, they 
 should have practice in making designs in relief. 
 
 The next step in the course of study is the pro- 
 jection of the lines in an object upon two planes of 
 projection in such a way that all its dimensions may 
 be accurately ascertained from the drawing. To do 
 
406 J^orlh-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 this, it is necessary to teach the pupil what is meant 
 by the terms plane of projection and plane and 
 elevation. To do this, let the teacher place a rec- 
 tangular block on a sheet of paper, and then mark, 
 around the edge of the block on the paper. Now let 
 him explain to the class that the paper is the plane 
 of projection, and the drawing on the paper is the 
 plane or horizontal projection of one of the faces of 
 the block. Now let the instructor bind the paper 
 round one edge of the block so as to touch one of 
 the vertical faces of the block — the block, mean- 
 while, remaining in its original position on the 
 paper. The part of the paper which rests against 
 the vertical face of the block has now become the 
 vertical plane of projection. The teacher now 
 marks on the vertical plane around the edge of the 
 block, and that makes the elevation or the vertical 
 projection. Now let the class be shown that a simi- 
 lar drawing may be made on the blackboard, which 
 cannot be bent around the block as the paper was. 
 To do this let the teacher draw a horizontal base 
 line on the blackboard to separate the horizontal 
 from the vertical plane ; then place the block 
 against the blackboard, below, and with one of its 
 edges on the base line. Now let him mark around 
 the block in that position and then revolve it around 
 
Teachers' Association. 407 
 
 tlie base line and mark around it in that position. 
 The first will be the plane and the second will be the 
 elevation. This preliminary work has been found 
 to be indispensible to rapid and substantial pro- 
 gress. It enables the pupil to comprehend what 
 each projection is, and that a drawing can represent 
 the exact size and shape of one class of objects, at 
 least, without any numerical figures and without 
 being a picture of the object. Now let the class be 
 shown that similar drawings can be made from 
 dimensions taken from the block or from given 
 dimensions. When this is done let the class be 
 shown how to represent blocks whose sides are 
 not parallel to one or the other of the planes of 
 projection.* 
 
 When so much as I have just indicated is under- 
 stood let the pupils be taught how to represent 
 blocks to some given scale that are too large to be 
 represented on the planes of projection in their true 
 size ; that is, let a certain number of feet in the 
 object be represented by an inch in the drawing. 
 From this time all problems should be drawn to a 
 given scale. 
 
 * It is not well at this time, to attempt to teach the pupil to represent 
 lines that are parallel to neither plane of projection as the ability to do 
 this is not necessary to the success of the work, at this point, and because 
 without this, there is enough to do now, to make what is immediately 
 necessary understood, let its cpnsideratlon be deferred until a knowledge 
 of it is essential to the progress of the work. 
 
408 J\forih-Eastern Ohio 
 
 So far the pupils have had to deal only with 
 problems in which the blocks were supposed to rest 
 against both planes of projection. Now they should 
 be taught to represent blocks that are a given dis- 
 tance, first from one plane, and then from the other, 
 and finally, blocks that are given distances from 
 both planes of projection. * 
 
 By a system of problems such as has just been 
 named, the pupils will have but one condition of 
 projections to master at a time, and by having the 
 problems executed on the blackboard and ex- 
 plained, each pupil will acquire a more complete 
 mastery of the subject than could otherwise be 
 acquired in the same time. 
 
 When the pupils are able to represent a rectan- 
 gular block in plane and elevation under any of the 
 conditions just named to any given scale, he is 
 ready to begin the study of home architecture. 
 
 Now let there be arranged a series of problems 
 in plane and elevation, beginning with a simple 
 rectangular box. Let the dimensions of this box 
 be changed ; let it be added to here, cut otf there, 
 its interior divided into compartments, and let 
 apertures be cut in the partitions and outside walls 
 of various sizes and in various places, until, as 
 a result we have a dwelling house in plane and 
 elevation. 
 
Teachers' Associalion. 409 
 
 The study of projections in this way is directly 
 applicable to the particular branch of industry with 
 which every one has to deal in some degree sooner 
 or later, and if one can make a dwelling house in 
 plane and elevation, with the cornices, chimneys, 
 windows, doors, stairs, etc., in their right places 
 and proportions, he is possessed of a practical 
 knowledge of industrial drawing. 
 
 In all that has been done up to this point, the 
 question of culture, for its own sake, has hardly 
 been thought of, but since all that we have laid out 
 to do can be accomplished long before the pupil has 
 graduated from the high school, it becomes neces- 
 sary for us now to decide what we are to do in the 
 time that remains. The pupils now know how to 
 represent chairs, tables, and so forth ; they know 
 that ornamental designs should express some 
 sentiment, and when the best material for design 
 is to be had for the taking, and they know how to 
 represent a dwelling house in plane and elevation, 
 but have as yet learned nothing about the harmony 
 of color, at least, not in their drawing lessons. I 
 would, therefore, have them instructed next in the 
 primary laws of the harmony of color. When this 
 is done, I would give the class the problem to find a 
 site for a small dwelling house such as a young 
 
410 T^orlJi-EasUrn Ohio 
 
 mechanic of limited means would be likely to 
 build. The site for such a house must not be 
 where land is too expensive ; it must not be too 
 far from the centre of business ; it must be in a 
 good neighborhood, within easy reach of church 
 and school. ■ 
 
 Let the class be allowed a certain time in which 
 to find a site, and. let each pupil write the locality 
 he has chosen on a slip of paper and hand it in to be 
 submitted to the decision of the class. At the next 
 drawing lesson the teacher names one of the localities 
 he finds written on one of the slips ; the class discusses 
 its merits, and decides, either to accept it or to look 
 further. And so on until either a site is found to 
 which the class will agree, or until all the localities 
 named have been submitted to the class and have 
 been rejected. In which case, let the class try again 
 until a site is found. 
 
 When the class have fixed upon the locality, let 
 the pupils prepare a report on the style of the 
 houses in the neighborhood. These should be read 
 and discussed by the class. The pupils should now 
 be allowed sufficient time for each one to make a 
 sketch of the style of house he would recommend. 
 These should be handed in and several of them 
 should be reproduced on the blackboard. The 
 
Teachers' Association 411 
 
 class should then fix upon the style of the house, 
 its dimensions and the number of its rooms. 
 
 When this is done let sufficient time be allowed 
 to make finished drawings in plane and elevation. 
 After the drawings are complete, let the class 
 submit designs for wall-paper or fresco, carpets, 
 mantles, curtains, and furniture. This will bring 
 the pupil in contact with practical problems, such 
 as he is sure to be called upon to solve in the future. 
 
 When this house is complete let the pupil be 
 given the problem to construct a larger and more 
 pretentious honse in the same way, and when this 
 is done, a larger one still. During the famishing of 
 the houses the pupils should visit the furniture 
 stores, and such dwellings as the owners are willing 
 to open for the inspection of the pupils under the 
 guidance of the instructor, and essays should be 
 prepared and read before the class upon styles of 
 furniture, arrangement of rooms, etc. 
 
 As a last step in the course of study in drawing, 
 I would say, let such a book as "A Story of a 
 House," by Violett Le Due, be accepted as a text- 
 book, and have the class study it thoroughly. The 
 designing of houses, and the furnishing of the same, 
 is a field that will pay richly for the working. It 
 will afford excellent subjects for essays and compo- 
 sitions. It will aflfbrd a means for the exercise of 
 
412 J\fort?i-Eastern Ohio Teachers' sissocialion. 
 
 every faculty, and is a fusing, as it were, of all the 
 branches studied into one. I shall not enlarge upon 
 this, but here let me say, tHat I know that all tihis 
 and mope can be done in the common sqhools, and 
 not consume more than one hour and a half per 
 week of school time. 
 
 In presenting this I am often asked : ' ' How can 
 this be done when the teachers know nothing of it 
 themselves, and when most of them, are firm in the 
 belief that it requires a special talent to learn, and 
 that they especially are not of the gifted few. 
 
 Suppose that in a certain system of schools it 
 were proposed to introduce the study of drawing, 
 and that it were agreed to devote two hours per 
 week to its study. I should say, if such a problem 
 were presented to me, employ the best teacher that 
 can be had ; let it be his special and. only work in 
 the schools to teach the regular class teachers to 
 draw ; when this is accomplished, let the necessary 
 apparatus be supplied, and then it can become a 
 part of the regular school work with a certainty of 
 its being a success. By such an arrangement much 
 valuable time would be saved, and there would be a 
 smaller outlay of money than is now required by 
 any system with which I am acquainted. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 History 5 
 
 By the Editor. 
 
 Inaugural Address of President 83 
 
 Hon. Thos. W. Harvey. 
 
 Crown the Teacher — A Story of Olympus 87 
 
 W. Bowen, M. D. 
 
 How to Preserve the Eyes 94 
 
 A. Metz, M. D. 
 
 Oral Instruction versus Text-books 110 
 
 H. M. James. 
 
 Training in the Use of Language 123 
 
 Harriet L. Keeler. 
 
 Object Teaching 129 
 
 Samuel Pindley. 
 
 The Teacher in Grooves 141 
 
 Miss P. H. Goodwin. 
 
 Promotions and Examinations 156 
 
 E. P. Moulton. 
 
 Honor-Men 171 
 
 Ellen A. Darling. 
 
 Health in the Public Schools 183 
 
 President B. A. Hinsdale. 
 
 Words Correctly Spoken ^ 207 
 
 Elroy M. Avery. 
 
^14: Table of Contents. 
 
 The Charge of Inflexibility of Graded Schools 3S0 
 
 E. E. Spaulding. 
 
 Inaugural Address of Second President 335 
 
 I. M. Clemens. 
 
 The High School- and the College "...353 
 
 Professor C. H. Penfleld. 
 
 The Education of the Eye 369 
 
 President A. A. E. Taylor, D. D. " 
 
 Some Reasons for Teaching Drawing 395 
 
 L. S. Thompson. 
 
 Reading as a Means of Discipline Supplementary to School Training .319 
 Professor Hiram Mead. 
 
 Inaugural Address of Third President 348 
 
 H. M. Parker. 
 
 Music — Its Object — How, and by whom Taught 359 
 
 N. Coe Stewart. 
 
 A System of Teaching Drawing for Common Schools.... 379 
 
 Frank Aborn. 
 
 Curiosity as a Motive. Power in Education 384 
 
 .John Bolton. 
 
■;') '". ( jV .'<