Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-12-29
"Going to School. /"
BY NJ. QUAD.

iShuZe Tnat IeSultS Hight fOtioHf I
think not. I don't believe they are pre-
pared for the awful consequences which
would follow departure from the
monotonY of textbooks and stereotyped
class examinations. They must know that
the moment you treat pupil in school
hours as ii he was not prisoner. he will
at once kick up rebellion and forge this
books.
Children are sent to school to learn; we
all know that Certain eminent men
have been called upon. or have called
upon themselves, to compile biographies,
arlthmetics, spelling books, readers, ETC.,
Tor instruction of school children. It fol-
lows as matter of necessity, that pupils
have no business to learn anything except
from these books. If a teacher should
take 1t into her head to explain to the
pupils the difference between poetry and
blank-verse, or explain any interesting
question In natural history, she should be
severely reproved, because none of the
schoOlbooks refer to such things.
The other day met bit of girl 90
ing to school with tears in her eyes and
Sanders new speller in her hand. She
could spell, but Sanders had told her, and
her teacher had cautioned her, to com
nit to memory the fact tina, Words are
either primitive, derivatiye, simple or
compound" The child didn't know
whether the word primitive" meant twin
hitching- posts or fire alarm, and when
asked her the meaning of the word
compound she looked from an apple
n 10 L.
post and back, as if the sig
niticance of the word lowered between
the two. l didn't explain or assist her, Of
course. Because Sanders put that sem
tence in his speller, it follows that pupils
must learn it, even though their teacher
could not write it down and spell half the
words correctly. That same little girl,
hardly ten years of age, must learn from
the same book that s'indorser is one that
indorses," and that san app llor is one
that makes appeal and waiIe she may
learn the words by heart, she will know
their meaning just about as much as her
teacher knows why Lake Michigan is
longer than it is broader.
Around the corner they buried four
teen year-old boy the other day. He
didn't die of scarlet fever or any other
pronounced disease In fact the doctor
never made up his mind what to Call it.
The boy became pale, haggard, and
thin, suffered much with his head,
and in his last hours he talked wildly and
strangely.
led so hard, 'Wept bis mother; and I took
a look at the dead boy schooIbooks He
had been studying mathematics, history,
photography, writing, natural philosophy,
and two or three ether things, and when
his mother "came to remember" she re-
called that his lessons kept him at his
books from Breakfast till nine o'clock in
the evening, and that she had sometimes
caught him working mathematical ex-
amples on the Sabbath, IN order to be
perfect" on Monday. soon found where
he had left off in his arithmetic. 1t was
an example reading about as follows: IF
A, has ten oxen which weigh eight hun
dred pounds each, and B. has fourteen
mules which weigh four times as much,
and one third OF the mules fall into 4
mud-hole, and four of the oxen lose their
left ears, what will be the weather next
week2"
I do not say that this example killed
the boy. If 1t did, all right. 1t was
there to De learned, and he must learn it
or die. Just imagine how utterly unit
that boy would have been to society and
business circles without being able to
answer such examples off hand!
was talking with a school teacher the
other day who will certainly come to
some bad end if he does not change his
opinions. He had the audaclty to hold
that children went to school not as pris-
oners, but as pupils, the social equals Of
teachers, but obeying orders because re-
alizlng that discipline advanced the In
terests fall. He held that it mattered
not how the pupils learne that N lchigan
was bound on the south by Ohio and In
diana, so long as they came to distinct
knowledge OF the fact, and he therefore
said to his young class in geography:
"Now, children, the President Of the
United States used to live in Ohio, and
Senator Morton, now dead, lived in In
diana. Tell me in what direction those
two States lie from Michigan"
1t is very wrong in him, because the
pupils take real pleasure ia hunting out
the answer not regularly laid down in
the textbooks. This teacher sets another
yful example. Right in the face of the
fact that there is scnool-reader contain
ing the history of William Penn and the
adventures of Mary's little lamb, he takes
a magazine or newspaper into his school
room, and says:
Nov, children, shall let one of you
read this report OF recent excavations at
Pompeii- Before read, let some oEe
tell me where Pompeil is
''In Italy, Is the answer.
"And what happened the citys"
No answer, because it is not down In
their readers.
ut was buried by ashes and mud from
an eruption of No Mt Vesuvius," he said !;
land now where is that mountaina"
"In Italy"
an eruption. We will nov read"
In halt an hour not only Que class, but
the whole school, has learned geography,
history, natural philosophy, aud some
thlng OF art, in the one lesson, and each
pupil goes home to relate what was read,
70 discuss it, and perhaps to learn new
cts However. it is wrong-very wrong.
What is to become OF our children If We
permit such 'hings2
Mrs. Nancy Slocum has just died ut
Bloomington. Ind, at the age OF 1913.
During the last ten Yeas OF her residence
with her daughter, now woman of IS,
she was entirely helpless, though able to
talk 1t was among the du1es of the
dauohter to dress and undress her moth
er, sing her to sleep, as if she were an In
fant. and give that care necessary 70 a