Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1873-05-20
Teachers Institute at Lancaster.

| WI maj hoCuOOlo uafo put QOWH your
Institute for two weeks, beginning
August 4, 1873, with Prof. w. ID. Par.
ker and yourself for Conductors.
The Committee find themselves
compelled, on account of want of
funds, to allow only two weeks to
three of the counties, Grant, Sank
and Kenosha,"
Grant County has thirty-three
townships and Kenosha, less than
eight townships. The above seems
like an unequal distribution of the
funds; but the Committee say that
we have one of the Normal Schools
in Grant County and that we have
had Gin 1871 and 1879 two four
weeks Institutes. You see that we
are supposed to receive much bene-
lit from the Normal School through
the development and Improvement
that it gives our teachers, and con,
sequently from the improvement it
makes in our common schools. |
hope that this is true | believe it is
true; but do We receive all the pro-
fit that is possible for that school to
render us? | fear not. Many teach
ers and would-be teachers in Grant
County who should and who could
nOtc be in a Normal School are not
there. Why do they remain away ?
1t this school is adequate to render
them and, through them, their pupils
as much benefit as it is supposed
that it does render, both the teach
ers and their schools, more should at
tend it and secure that benefit; but
if this school is inadequate and can.
not develope and improve them as
teachers to the extent that it is sup
posed, it does and to the extent that
we may reasonably expect it to i'm
prove them, and, if it eannot in it's
present condition, affect our COM
mon schools for their good to the
extent it should,-th school itself
should be made better. The cause
of the non~attendance of so many of
those who should attend, should if
possible be speedily removed, wheth-
err it be tho fault of public opinion in
not demanding better schools than
our average school or the fault of
teochers in not making the prepara-
ton demanded of them by the pub
lie or the fault of the Normal School
in not providing the best instruction
and training of its kind, or whether
all three be at fault.
There are many teachers that are
but poorly qualified who must teach
again before they can go to the Nor
NAL School, and, indeed, many can
never go there nor elsewhere to
school; yet they should improve
their qualifications before they enter
school as teachers next fall. Some
of them desire to do so, and will em.
brace every opportunity for improve
ment within their reach; but 1 am
sorry that [ am obliged to say many
must be urged to become better quali-
fed or they will make no attempt to
improve. School Boards, parents of
the pupils, and friends of education
should see to it that those who need
to be urged to induce them to be
present at Institutes and examina-
tons, receive the necessary encour-
agement to induce them 10 attend
these means of improvement And
every teacher should teach better
school next year than he is teaching
this year. Hence, Normal Teachers
Institutes are organized. They are
for all teachers and are designed to
be in all respects, Model Schools, at
which teachers can both review and
advance. No time is squandered up.
on these points which all understand
but those items which give them
trouble are thoroughly and well
treated of by the best teseheFs that
can be procured.
During the time that intervenes
between one Institute and the next,
the superintendent is continually tax,
ing notes of the "shOrt comings' of
the teachers, and at the Institutes
and Examinations, their errors are
pointed out and truer meanings and
better methods are suggested.
We have few teachers who do not
need to hear much, read much and
think much upon the Theory and
Practice of Teaching; and most of
them can, if they will make the best
of the opportunities which will be
offered them through the Normal
Schools, Normal and other Institutes,
and Teachers Examinations, -im-
prove from fifty to two-hundred per
cent. within the next five years. And
without this Improvement, the ma
jority can never anything like fully
discharge their duties as teachers
and with it the best will be much
better teachers than without it.
The greater our interest in any
thing the more we will think about
it; the more we think upon subject
the better we understand it: hence