Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-04-27
Tcachers' Institute.


The Institute met this morning at clock.
The attendance was more numerous than
that of yesterday; and the deep interest feltin
the lectures was visible in the close and intel
ligent attention of every one present 1t is
seldom that an equal number of ladies meet
together, whose countenances and general de-
pertinent exhibit so much of mental culture,
and so much of womanly grace. If, in ad-
dition to Teachers Institutes and Normal
Schools, the salaries of those young ladies
could be increased, we think the efficiency of
our schools would be considerably advanced.
There is large amount of youthful energy
and vigorous ability employed in the culture
of the young, but there is not sufficient in
ducement offered to retain teachers as such,
when their powers have become maturel by
experience and study. They find better pay
ing employment at the very time when their
services are most valuable, in the most impor-
tant business in any State. If the community
would only pay enough, we could have class
of teachers whose general merits would. not be
far below those of the able and efficient pro-
fessors who have lectured to the Institute
We want to have the very first educational
ability, not only in our High Schools but in
our Primary Schools. 1t requires the best
teachers SO to simplify the rudiments of know
ledge as to make them intelligable to little
child. We trust that the Teachers Institute
will lead incidentally to general increase of
teachers emoluments.
Professor Guyot resumed his course of lee
lures on Physical Geography, and was follow
ed by Professor Mason on tie rudi1nents OF
Music.
AT IL o'clock A. M, Professor Whitaker
delivered his third lecture on Drawing. He
took for his subject the Acanthus, leaf
which in numberless notifications enters
into architecture and every other depart
ment of art. The Corinthian Capital, one
of the most beautiful, ornate, and elegant
forms in architecture, is the composition of
basket, an acanthus leaf and square piece
of tile. More than 70, 900 notifications of the
acanthus are used in architecture alone. 1t
enters into porcelain, candelabria, carpeting,
paper hanging, furniture, &C., in all their
numberless varieties of form and design; and
it is capable of millions of notifications.
Professor Whitaker showed that this leaf,
which so extensively pervades the realms of
artistic beauty, is itself only combination of
two or three simple outlines. The true artist
needs only to master the details of those forms
s,,r II Al n 20 Al e
quisite beauty. He recommended the art
student not to apply to books to find the ideal
forms Of beauty, but to go to nature The
study Of the beautiful, and the development
of art in the old world, he contended, was
more difficult than in our country. The art
student in the old world was a slave to tradi-
tion. He was servile imitator of antiqu ity.
He copied the fragmentary works of Phideas
and Apenes, without ever hoping to attain
their excellence. In America, the young
mind had no ruins to ransack for the ideal of
beauty. He has what the old mast ers had,
Nature, and liberty to study the numberless
forms of beauty which she presented to him.
America would yet develope higher and no.
bier ideal of art than either Greece or Rome
had presented to the world. The Professor
illustrated his lecture with splendidly exc
cated drawings; and with manipulations on
the black board, which eyinced his complete
command of the pencil.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
Professor Guyot lectured this afternoon, on
ocean currents, on the trade winds, and on
temperature.
Professor Mason's musical lecture, during
this session, was on the stave, the horizontal
lines ON which music is written; and on the
scale, which represents the eight graduated
tones which the human voice, or musical
instrument, is capable of producing. Pro-
fessor Mason's method of teaching is simple,
attractive, and eninently progressive.
Professor Whitaker lectured on architec-
turc. He described the parts which are com
mon to all orders and then described the
several peeuliarities Of the Doric, Ionic, Tus-
can, Corinthian, and Composite orders. He
said that his mode of educating his pupils in
architecture, was to cause them to take draw
ings of any buildings, Or parts of buildings,
which attracted their attention; and he then
explained to them their architectural charac-
ter and relations.