Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1876-06-15
The kindergarten"

The Kindergarten"
As so much attention is directed to
the s'Kindergarten" system of late,
perhaps the boys may take hint from
the following account in the Bulletin !:
Barnes, the sch0olmaster in a subuy.
ban town, read in the Educational
Monthly that boys could be taught his.
tory better than in any in any other
way by letting each boy in the class
represent some historical character, as
if he had done them himself. This
struck Barnes as a mighty good idea,
and he resolved to try it on. The
school had then progressed so far in in
it's study of the History of Rome as
the Punic wars, and MIR. Barnes i'm.
mediately divided the boys into two
parties, one Roman and the other Car
thaginian, and certain of the boys
were named after the leaders upon
both slider. All the boys thought it
was a big thing, and Barnes noticed
that they were so anxious to get to the
history lesson that they could hardly
say their other lessons properly.
When the time came Barnes ranged
the Romans upon one side of the room
and the Carthaginians on the other.
The recitation was very spirited, each
party telling about it's deeds with ex.
traordinary JUNCTION. After a while
Barnes asked a ROmad to describe the
battle of Gamma Whereupon the Ro-
mans heaved their copies of .Way.
lands Moral Science at the enemy.
Then the Carthaginians made bat
tering ram out of bench and jammed
it among the Romans, who retaliated
with a volley of books, states and
chewed paper balls. Barnes conclud-
ed that the battle of Canine had been
sufficiently illustrated, and he tried to
stop it; but the warriors considered it
too good a thing to let drop, and accord.
ingly the Carthaginians sailed over to
the Romans with another battering
ram and thumped couple of them in
the stomach. ,:
Then the Romans turned in and the
fight became general. A Carthaginian
would grasp Roman by the hair and
hustle him around over the desks in a
manner that was simply frightful to
behold, and a Roman would give a
tiendish whoop and knock 4 Carthagin.
ian over the head with Greenleaf' s
Arithmetic. Hannibal got the head
of Scipio Africanus under his arm, and
Scipio, in his efforts to break away
stumbled, and the two generals fell and
had rough.and-tumble fight under
the blackboard. Calus Gracious
tackeled Hamilcar with ruler; and
the latter, in his struggles to get loose,
Fo01 o. II or /,
about thirty feet of stove.pipe.
Thereupon the Romans made a grand
rally, and in five minutes they ran the
entire Carthaginian army out of the
schoolroom and Barnes along with it.
and then they locked the door and
began to hunt up the apples and lunch
in the desks of the enemy.
After consuming the supplies they
went to the windows and made disa
greeable remarks to the Carthaginians
who were standing in the yard, and
dared old Barnes to bring the foes once
more into battle array. Then Barnes
went for policeman, and when hi
knocked at the door it was opened, anG
all the Romans were found busy study
ing their lessons. When Barnes came
in with the defeated troops he went
for Scipio Africanus, and pulling hin
out of his seat by the ear, he thrashei
that great military genius with a rat
an until Scipio began to cry, whereup
on Barnes dropped him and began K
paddle Caius Gracious. Then thing.
settled down in the old way, and thu
next morning Barnes announced that
history in the future would be studied
as it always had been, and he wrote :
note to the Educational Monthly to say
that in his opinion the man who sug
gested the new system ought to be lee
out and shot. The boys do not nov
take as much interest in Roman hist0
nv as they did on that day.