Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1873-09-08
For the Monitor.
CAUSES OF FAILURE IN TEACH.
ING.
No. 9.

No. 2.
We are to notice some specific causes
of failure; and in this article I propose
to mention certain faults in districts and
communities. There is too much in
difference with regard to the care of
schools; too much appreciation and
practice of the proverb that what is
everybody's business is nobody's; too
little appreciation Of the teachers place
and work. There is in the popular
mind at the present day much of what
is called ''old .togyisna'' with regard to
teaching and teachers. l do not mean
what young America calls "old .togyisne,' .
but what is really such. Many of the
customs of past generations might with
propriety and profit be called up from
their untimely grave, quickened with
new life, and put into use. Such,
though the spirit of the age may deny
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But districts and communities are too
slow to accept improvements as the pro-
gress of the world brings them forth.
They are kept out of sight too long, too
long looked upon with jealous eye,
too long held at arms length after be-
ing accepted. There is so much of this
clinging to old usages and practices,
that each improvement must go through
this process before it is adopted. and
sometimes the process lasts for years
so that the districts where there is most
of this feeling are always behind others.
and are continually getting further in
the rear. For instance, when the idea
of a Graded school is first advanced in a
village it is at once frowned down;
when proposed again, it is looked upon
and talked of with suspicion, very much
as a keg of powder would be regarded
in farmers kitchen on winter even.
ing. Again the question comes up in
that village. (for there are faithful few
in nearly every community who will not
let progress die out,) and the vote is
carried by bare majority to adopt the
new system; but there is growing in
plenty on the part of the minority, and
the Improvement is held at arms length
for while and christened innovation.
even after being adopted. l use this IL
lustration to show how sometimes a
thing, which is almost universally rec
commended by those who have used it as
good and useful thing, is feared and
spurned simply because it is new. In
one village in Orleans county, where it
has been endeavored to introduce this
very system of Graded school, things
have just reached the grumbling and
growing period; while in an adjoining
town, where it is still more needed, they
have not arrived at that. Caution to be
sure is an excellent thing if used rea-
sonably but caution alone cannot reg
ulate school district any better than it
could manage the army of the Potomac.
When thing has been tried in thous-
ands of instances. and in every case
where properly conducted has been prov
ed worthy of commentator and adop-
ton, it is ridiculous as we'll as pita-
BILE sight to see men SO glued to their
old customs and opinions that tn ey can
not be torn away from them. They can
not see the advantages of the new sys-
tenn they say. Just so man whose
eyes are filled with chaf may say truth
fully that he cannot see. but he can
wash the chaff from his eyes, and he is a
fool if he does not. There is too much
of this sold togyism" in our school dis
tricts; and the wrong of it is seen all
the more plainly from its inconsistency.
Men dc not behave SO with regard to
their other interests. Mention new
blood stallion or a thousand dollar Me-
rino lamb, and see any ambitious farmer
prick up his ears with instant interest
change the conversation to the needed
improvements of the school house, and
behold him yawning and nodding in his
chair. Ask him of his new horse rake
and hear his animated replies ask him
his opinion of the new school system
and see how quickly his nasal protuber
ance will assume an unpleasant and sig
nifcant angle. Another illustration o.
this same thing may be found in thu
fact that so many are satisfied with The
old fashioned mode Of teaching. It is ;
fact which cannot be denied that time!
change, and all our methods of doins
things must change with them, or we in
evitably fall behind in the great marcel
of improvement. Years ago teachers re
quired their pupils to learn their lessons
by rote; at the present day their worl
is considered to be the using of method
to euolve thought in the minds of thei
pupils, and no person should be pro
nounced fit to teach school who does no
know how to do this And yet there ar
a few persons in almost every communl
ty who shake their heads ominously a
the idea of teaching children in sue
| loose ways, and who declare that tn
world is growing worse because the sam
L scenes are not enacted in the schoe
room now as they were accustomed t