Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-05-23
NeedIeMOrk in Schools.

The Boston Public School Committee,
as a measure of retrenchment, has
adopted an order in effect 70 discharge
the special teachers in sewing and
transfer their work, so far as may be,
to the regular teachers. The plan
does not meet with unanimous favor,
and the AdUeTtiSer of that city says g.
"Any woman competent to teach
needlework' could bear the testimony,
if needed, that it requires time to cut
and fit work ready for direct use.
Alas too, a large number of the
mothers who send their children to
school are not competent to prepare the
work for them, and, indeed, it seems as
inappropriate to ash such q service as
to ask of the father to write out the
copies for their BOYS writing lessons.
In some of our schools, where the
teaching of sewing has been carried on
the longest and most Systematically,
there is found a great improvement in
the capacity for learning of the chill
dren when they enter the grammar
school. They do not all need to be
taught what needle is, and in which
hand it should be held. The fact shows
that the teaching of the older sisters
has had some influence at home. Per-
haps the mothers themselves have been
taught by the school girls, and the good
effect of the teaching has already been
felt by the community. This has been
the result of the careful and continu-
Gus care of a wise teacher, and if such
effects could become general we might
find in time that the younger children
would come much better prepared, and
the new generation of mothers, having
learned in the school, would be able to
send their children to school with fitted
work. But this period is not yet
reached. 1t has only been approached
under careful supervision, and it would
be fatal to the good work now begun
to have such supervision suddenly
stopped. In the midst of the cry that
too much hard work is demanded of
our girls, and too mIny 'OlOgies' and
'osOphies,' it woul surely be incon-
sistent to stop the admitted progress
of so valuable an instruction for girls
as the teaching of sewing"
Now, all our familiar English Chris
tian names are due to an exactly SINH
lar process. William, Richard, Robert,
Henry and the rest were originally
High German designations. The
Frankish conquerors of Gaul took them
in their train to LaOn, scissors and
Paris. Before long the ROmanized
Celts imposed their language on their
masters; so that French is now a Latin,
not Teutonic tongue. But the peo-
pie, in return, took their names from
the Frankish mobiles, and to this day
the ROmanO-Celtic inhabitants of
France call themselves Charles or
Louis, after the Karls and Hludwigs of
men settled in turn among the downs
and dales of Neustria, they, too,
adopted the high German designations
of their feudal superinrs at Paris; and
the Hrolfs, GrimS, Bious, ThOrs and
Hacos, whose meu Ory still survives in
Grimonville, Bonneville, Tourville, and
Haconville, gave way to the Roberts,
Walters, Williams, Henrys and Johns,
with whom we are so familiar in the
story of the Conquest. As soon as the
Norman dynasty was firmly settled on
the English throne. our own ancestors
again borrowed these names from the
new nobility, and the Godrics and God
gifus of our early history yield place at
once in the chronicles to the intrusive
prGnOmens of Normandy, Anjou and
Auuitaine. Thus the High Germans
gave these words to the Celtic Romance
people of Gaul, the Celts gave them to
the Scandinavian NOrmans, and the
Normans handed them on to the Low
German English. -COTnbiH Magazine.