The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1874-04-30
LOCAL INSTITUTES.
BY w. w. WOODRUFF.

" vi auy community, however
peculiar those wants may be. 1t is
administered by directors chosen by the
people whose schools those directors are
to organize and control. The branches
OF study required are reading, spelling,
writing, grammar, and history of the
united States; or, comprehensively,
language and calculation. 1t would be
impossible to conceive of education with
out some knowledge of these subjects
10 what extent they are to be taught, or
what other branches may be introduced,
the law does not specify. This is left to
the Judgment of the directors of the
district, without any limitation, except
what may be found, practically in the
mdr'naunl tax. 1t follows, then, that our
schools can never be permanently better
than the directors choose to make them.
he directors, as rule, will not choose
to make them may better than the people
demand. The people will not demand
better schools until they are convinced
that it is practicable, aud that it will be
! profitable to make them better. 1t is
| necessary, therefore. to convince the peo-
pie that better schools are practicable :;
that better teaching talent can be secured :;
and that better houses, better furniture.
more illustrative apparatus, and better
appliances generally, would be profitable
Investments. We do not say that the
people would always adopt and pursue
what Is shown to be for their highest
interest. Habits. prejudices, irrational
desires, or the love of money may inter
Fore for;or III
times be preferred to more remote
though superior one. But it cannot be
expected that the people will enter upon
any course of action involving heavy
expenditure, whose results lie far iu the
future, and pursue it steadfastly, unless
they are convinced that it is wise so to DO.
Under our system, this result must be
reached through the people. The appeal
must be made to the only power that can
achieve the result desired, or that can
secure and sustain it when it shall be
once attained. But an appeal alone will
not accomplish the work. The balance
of power is in the hands of those whose
habits of thought are somewhat fixed -
| They are distrustful of new things They
incline to the adage "if true not new and
if new not true" A plain statement of
the facts and figures in regard to educa-
! tion will Got arrest attention and awaken
the required interest. 1t will be con
sidered simply a school report. "Seeing
is believing"
The most successful and legitimate
method, therefore, of creating proper
public sentiment, and of giving that senti
ment an Intelligent direction, is to get
the pupils, teachers, parents, people and
superintendent together, and talk the
whole subject over in all its bearings -
/ Let it be shown then aud there, by actual
| illustration, what the teachers are doing
10 their school rooms. Let various
methods be presented and their merits
discussed Let the difference between
good and poor teachers appear. Let all
the complaints and suggestions Of parents,
teachers and citizens be considered
candidly. Let it be shown that good
schools increase the value Of property !;
that an intelligent people is always more
prosperous than al ignorant people that
improvidence and want dog the heels Of
ignorance that intelligence, judging Of
the future by the past, anticipates events,
and provides for them, and, knowing the
laws and possibilities of nature, makes
her minister to human well being. This
can be done by means OF the local institute,
which should be made more peoples
than a teachers institute. The local
institute is needed to supplement the
county institute, which few of the direc
attopA Whap faoph
ers return from the county institute,
where they have been giving attention
for a week to the science of education and
methods of instruction, listening to the
best thoughts of the most accomplished
lecturers, it is often to 6nd their pupils
somewhat denoralized, and the directors
aud patrons annoyed, by the weeks vaca-
ton If, animated by higher purposes
aud renewed zeal, they attempt to In.
troduce new topics and methods, they
frequently find that neither the pupils
nor the parents are in sympathy with the
movement The local institute is needed
to call out the parents, children and
teachers to make them acquainted with
each other; to allow an Interchange OF
ideas, and to open the way for such
changes and Improvements as, when
understood, will be generally approved.
Local institutes are DOW held in at least
fourteen counties OF the State. But 10
most OF the counties they continue only
one or two days; sometimes beginning
Friday pight aud closing Saturday night,
so as not to interfere with the regular
sessions of the schools OF course but
little can be accomplished in one or two
days 1t is simply the district institute
extended with the county superintendent
to direct aud it is devoted, for the most
part, to the matter and the methods OF
instruction. 1t does not, to any great
extent, enlist the sympathies of the peo
pie is not felt to be peoples institute.
In two counties, Bucks and Chester. and