The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-03-07
DAILY PRESS.
PORTLAND
Monday Morning, March 7, 1870.
Teachers' institutes.
PORTLAND

| AeuCucHb
| Within the last quarter of a century two
things have became popular iu our land, farm
'"9 una common schools and no two thinos
"ie inoie ueserVing in popularity, for on the
que we oepend Tor material, al d on the other
ior lntehectual sustenance. But popu,aritv
entails Its dangers as We'll as its ADVANTAGES
The time server, the political trimmer the
sharper are often keen scenters of popular
sentiment and extremely sagacious in turn
ing it to personal profit.
They are not the kind of men that make a
thing deservidly popular, but they love to ride
when they find the hobby all sadded and
brfdled, regardless of the name the thing they
ride is called by, whether education. agricul-
ture, temperance, liberty or religion. What
ever their god may be, they always want to
build him temple, and the people to furnish
them money wherewith to build, the cost al
ways exceeding the estimates by a third or
three quarters. This enterprising class ALWAYS
nave bran new"Dodugger" to take the place
of existing machinery that will teach more
children, or dig more potatoes that any inven-
tion that ever existed. There remarks are
/
man or men, but are intended as a word of
caution to all "to whom it may concern; a
word much oftener needed than administered
to State, County or Municipal officials. ANY
man however, whom the saddle suits, is not
denied its use. "It is free to ALL"
Our Teachers Institutes, it is to be hoped,
will prove a success. If, however, they
should be mainly instrumental in heaping ad-
ditional and new burdens on the children
they could not be properly called successful.
Or if they hastened the development of the
mental powers of children carrying them
through the term of their education sooner,
this would be no desirable achievement.
The little ones are now already over-bur
dened and stimulated, many Of them, literally
to death. 1t is even doubtful if intemperance
carries more victims to the grave in New
England than the false perverted ambition of
teachers aided by the vanity of parents. A
melancholy instance illustrating the insane
competition of stupid teachers to make their
schools appear brilliant at examination oc-
CURED not long since at one of the hot beds
of precociousness in the city of Boston. A
little girl at public examination in one of the
schools failed and as she supposed diseraced
herself Her fancied disgrace sunk so deep
into her sensitive heart that she went away
Immediately and committed suicide. Her
grief was only little more poignant than that |
of hundreds of others who keep their trouble |
to themselves.
No, what is wanted is no precocous devel-
opment of mental faculties. Education is
process of correct thinking, and little children
are not expected the thoughts of mature men
and women.
There are two ways of teaching. One is
artificial, the other natural. II the County
Institutes shall enable teachers to discover
and practice the natural method of instruc-
tion the experiment will pay expenses of the
undertaking. Otherwise not. BY the last
method the act of learning is made pleasant
to the pupil, by the first it is painful. This
difference may be made plain as illus
trated by the two ways Of acquiring knowl-
edge of language. All children are born with
no idea whatever of any language, but by
natural mode of instruction they all get a
early age, at least sufficient to enable them to
understand the meaning of most words. Now
who ever heard of child growing pale and
sickly by this mode of teaching him language.
He does not even know that he is being
| taught, and yet he learns faster than boy
| at College. Now reverse the process and
teach him the English as you teach Latin and
Greek. Buy him grammar and diction-
ary and set him to getting lessons in mode,
lenses, conjugations and declensions, and you
may see the beauty of the artificial method of
teaching and learning. If you want to know
more, ask your child how he likes it and see
if he thrives and enjoys life.
At a certain high school in York county,
where a teachers institute has already been
held, history is said to be taught by obliging
the learner to commit to memory and repeat
verbatim to the teacher, who holds in her
hand the textbook, page after page of the
language of the book. The author of the
very work such class is studying could not
take the place of one of those pupils and re-
cite to that teachers satislactson. He would
| be "demerited" and perhaps punished for his
blunders, should he appear in the disguise OF
childhood. Such is the artificial, the labori-
Gus, the painful process of learning, as impos-
ed by stupid teachers, which, if teachers in
sttutes do not pat final stop to, they should
themselves receive their everlasting quietus
from the first Legislature that meets after
such default. The people should never tol
crate any machinery which adds to the holi-
days and to the wages of teachers merely. 1t
must add to their efficiency or 60 to the wall.
Teachers must be made to take manfully
the laboring oar, and not shirk and throw the
labor all on the learner. Especially they must
be forbidden to educate" him so there shall
be nothing left Of him when he gets through
their hands except skin, bones, dyspeptic
stomach, and tuberculous lungs. In our cit
les common schools are maintained nearly or
quite throughout the year, and teachers en-
ploy every devise their ingenuity can invent
to make the children constant in their attend
| ance. In every kind of weather, sick or well,
the more ambitious and best scholars, obedi-
| ent to authority, press on to school, day after
day and year after year, ignoring headache,
| heart-ache, WEAKNESS, and parental admoni-
| tions even. till typhoid fever or consumption
| too often claims the victim.
The bad boys and the obtuse in intellect
| are in little danger perhaps. But our public
schools which ought especially to be insiitu-
tions to inculcate the laws of health, are in
fact becoming institutions to break them, and
bring upon the rising generation the conse-
quences of their violation.
The only remedy for these things seems to
be, first "to make teachers better informed in
Hygiene, and second, that they adopt more
natural mode of instruction."
The high pressure system must be aban-
doned, and the desire for infant prodigies
abated. The teachers must do more them
selves and trust less to books and forever
abandon making children commit to memory
long strings of words and sentences. Every
teacher should be held unqualified for his
place unless he could take class and with
out the aid of any book teach successfully
English Grammar. To illustrate this point
reference may be made to short lecture
given by DR.. True at one of the teachers
Institutes before promiscuous audience on
natural history. Not one in twenty perhaps
| of the audience had gwen any attention "