Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-03-05

February q, 1874.

ever did exit, it lie In the person 81 lile
Superintendent Of schools FOR ms
cauuty He came into the lndepend-
ant District of Plensantvllle on tie
| 18th inst. .'for the purpose OF vlsitihe
the schoolsn In order 10 show the
people how little capacity ne has loi
that Office, and how much he lacks %
having enough OF the right kind OF
material under his hat, | will give you
| 4 short account of bis visit TO our
schools.
He first visited the school taught by
Mr.. +. J. West. The superintendent
proposed to take school into MS own
hands, and proceeded TO examine ID
geography, and the most of lis ques-
lions were answered correctly bat ne
objected to the answers, and gave some
old wide-tracked answers instead
He asked What is a sound?' and
was answered: "A shallow channel,
or shallow bay" Superintendent
said "That Is not right a sound Is q
passage Of water so shallow that its
depth may be easily measured by lead
and Iine.n This definition Mr. West
criticised. Mr.. Observation-Disclosures
ed that he was running this school -
he had duties to perform, and came
there to perform them, aud wanted
Mr.. West TO hush up apd not in
terrupt him any more. Mr.. West did
not "hush up however.
The Superintendent next proceeded
to examine class in arithmetic. His
explanation of the principle of bor-
rowing in subtraction, was a little diff
ferent from that given by the teacher,
and because some of the smaller ones
i'm the class did not take hold ofbis
way, he became enraged, and said
that their teachers method was cal
culated TO Keep stisem gin The fog.'
This raised Mr.. Wesfs Re little, and
he then and there demonstrated that
method was not fogy, and that
Mr.. superintendent method was
justly liable to that charge. Then
Mr.. Superintendent coolly repeated
that he 'came here to perform duties
in this school - that he did not want
to be Interrupted again, and ordered
Mr.. w. TO ''shut upn and attend to his
the justice Of the gentleman remarks
and told him that he would hush
when it suited him to do so.
The next day we followed him to the
Primary School in charge of Mr. /. o.
Warner, an energetic young teacher,
fresh from modern institution. OF
course Mr.. Warmer has some new
modes of teaching. Hence the Super
intendent, when he entered this
school, felt like Rip Van Wrinkle
when he awoke after his twenty years
sleep, except that his sleep in edAca-
tional matters had been forty instead
of twenty years. Nothing transpired
here worthy of special notice except
that the Superintendent asked few
random questions in geography, and
tried to introduce the old, rejected
and absurd idea of counting during
pauses in reading, and bored the
scholars and teacher with long, old
fashioned, tyrannical speech.
We now go with him TO the school
taught by Mr.. c. w. Embree. In ex
aiming Fifth Reader class, he pro-
mulgated his old fogy notion about
counting during pauses. Mr.. Embrea
called out an Algebra class the Su-
perintendent said he did not know
anything about Algebra, but it
was all right. Then he ordered the
teacher to call out the arithmetic
class and after abusing the young
ladies and gentlemen, he was asked
by one of the pupils to explain pro-
portion, which he did, (?) by putting
the number required in the answer
| for the second term. Next he exam.
ined class In Physiology. and among
| the questions, he asked what does
| Egeae mean? The class looked as
though they did not know what he
meant. At last pupil suggested
that he meapt Hygiene. "0h yes, =
says he, Hygiene, that is it, He
then made concluding speech, tell
| ing Embree's scholars that they
Were q rude, iil-mmnerly set. This
Mr.. Embree contradicted, saying thai
/ 1t was not true.
One more specimen of his gross ig.
norance. IN the McElroy school
taught by Miss Brown, he asked tn.
| question: "Can you mention some
Important isthmns i'm the Western
Hemisphere ~ He was readily an.
swered the Isthmus Of Panama
well, that is rather an obscure anC
remote isthmus," gays he, cant you
give me the name of a more important