Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1875-01-06
second Dny-Address of DIR. Mays and
Prof. Observation-Disclosures


10 the Editors Of the Chronicle
The weather to-day being more fa-
vorable, the attendance at the County
Institute was very great. During the
entire day and night the spacious
Academy was well filled. Prof. Thos.
Roberts, of the East Tennessee Uni
versity, Rev. J. f. Il. Mays and Hon.
David Richards arril ed during the
day.
At half past eight O'Clock, A. NJ,
the Institute was cal led to order by
VIM. w. Bishop. Prof. Sharpe was
called to be temporary chairman.
The minutes of the previous meet
ing were read and approved.
Mr.. Lee was appointed Critic for the
day.
The permanent organization of the
Institute, which was postponed from
yesterday by press of business, was
effected by electing the following of
ficers:
President, Supt. T. G.. Harms. Vice
Presidents We're elected from each To-
cal Institute ia the county, AS follows
the river; Prof. Perkins, Powell's Sta
ton Institute; 7. o. Brooks, Camp
bells Station Institute, and +. G. Bea-
man, Thorn Grove Institute.
VIM. w. Bishop was elected secre~
tary.
ii. M. Brother was first called to
give class drill in written spelling.
He said that Demosthenese had said
that oratory consisted in action, ac-
ton, action, and were he asked what
were the stepping stones to good spell
ing, he would answer, writing, wri.
ting, writing. He called class
of teachers, and had them to
number half of them No. /,
and half No. .. To No. he
he gave the fl rst word, and the second
word to No. ., &c. When the lesson
was all given out, he called them to
rise and spell the words from the slate
as they had written them. His meth
cd seemed to work admirably well.
Rev. j. F. b. Mays wanted TO know
where to find some rules to guide him,
as he had been brought up in the olden
time. He was reminded that there
were no laws for the spelling of all
words, but that he would find some
mihon rules in the spelling books.
Mr.. Butler said no law could be
made that would be accurate in every
respect.
At the close of this discussion,
" Nearer my God was sung by the
congregation, Miss Butler presiding at
the organ.
Prof Butler next drilled class in
history. He alluded to the trouble in
studying history. He would divide
the history OF our own country into six
epochs-first, discovery and settle
ment; second, distribution of colonies (;
third, Revolutionary war. &c, and 10y
this manner the pupil should be led on
step by step to more complete knowl-
edge of the history of our country.
Would indicate on the map what parts
of the country were visited by English,
French and other explorers; and, hav-
ing drawn out all the class knew about
the first discovery of the country,
would turn to the history and assign
for n lesson all the paragraphs bearing
on the discovery, etc, and then pass on
to division No. and treat it in the
same way.
Rev. Mr.. Mays said that if he had
been taught according to Mr.. b. Is
manner it would have saved him ten
fold of the time he had spent in read-
ing history.
Prof. Sharpe next drilled class in
penmanship. He thought that in
teaching peumanship generally too
much was attempted. What we want
is to fix in the minds of the pupils the
correct forms of the letters, introducing
them one principle at a time. We
have seven principles, instead of teach
ing the twenty-four distinct letters.
The "querY box y was next Opened,