The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1879-12-09
For THE TIMES.
TEACHERS INSTITUTE.
NEw BLooMrlrLp. pn.. dec. l is1a


New BLOOMFIELD, Pa, Dec. |, 1879.
The thirtieth annual telm Of the Perry
County Teachers Institute convened in the
Court House to day at O'Clock, p. m. Open
ed by singing "Jesus, Lover Of My Soul !" q
part of the Sd chapter of Prov, was read and
prayer offered by Rev. Cleaver, followed by
the opening address of the County Supern-
tendent, S. lB. Fahnestock. Messrs. II. Il
Zimmerman and q. q. Palm were then elect
ed Vice Presidents, and II. q. CAN'T and q.
ID. Owen, Secretaries. Time of opening and
closing the Institute was fixed as follows:
Open at ., a. IN and l, p M, and closing at
H. IN. and 4. p. M The roll was next called
ard 1876 teachers responded to their names.
Prof E. V. DeGraife, Of Albany, N. Y, was
introduced, who spoke on the object of teach
ers' county Institutes, viz: To teach teachers
how to teach children must be taught to
teach themselves; lie gave typical class
drill, after which the programme for this
evening was announced. Institute adjourned
Ecen5ag Sessioa-Institute met at 7, p. M,
President Fahnestock in the chair opened
with muslc-"Come, all ye Faithful and
80, Come, Come Away" The lecturer of
the evening, Prof. DeGraff, was introduced
and spoke of "The Elements of Success
The lecturer started with the axiom "be ye
perfect" taking up and discussing in mas
terly manner the following elements 1st ee-
ment, industry End, integrity Sd, honesty
4th energy 9th, enthusiasm 9th, work
7th intelligence. The lecture was interest
ing and instructive and duly appreciated by
q large audience. Next in order, music
1.-THE old cottage clock" Adjourned.
TUESDAY.
Morning Sessio1-Institute convened at 0,
a. M; President in the chair. Scripture les
son, 147th Psalm, and prayer by w. Il Baker
The first subject taken up was PhOncs by
Prof. DeGraffe, In which lie gave an excellent
drill in the sounds of the vowels. Music
''rhe old cottage clock" The next iii order
was class drill lin reading by Mr.. j. p.
Long of Duncannon. Music-"Old old
home, !" song and chorus Rev. j. Edgar then
spoke of Uniformity of Classification in our
schools: How can we best reach it? The
speaker argued that the lack of uniformity of
classification, Is the want of power in the
heads of our departments that the power of
classification in our schools should be in the
State and Country Superintendents so that
each school or district shall not nave its own
system of classification, but that it shall be un-
form throughout the country. The following
referred questions were answered Is it adj
visab,e to use the U. s. History as reading
book in place of the fifth reader? answered
aftirmativey by j. w. Soule, discussed by
w. e. Baker, II. b. Zimmerman Jas. p.
Long and II. II. McKeehan. How can we
best utilize the county institute? answered by
W. e. Baker and discussed by Esq. Kistler,
ii. u. Zimmerman, j d. Baker, Prof. De
Giraffe and Prof, Little. Adjourned.
Afternoon Sesss0n--Opened at !, p. m 142
President in the chair. Music--"Tw Twilight is
falling" VIM. e. Baker read paper on
Neuter Verbs ii, was we'll gotten up, very
instructive, and we hope will be well studied
by the teachers. Prof. q. e. Little, of Pitts
burgh, was introduced who gave lesson on
Prof. &. 9. Palm next read paper on
"Why Teachers Fail" This is n paper well
worthy of close study, giving as the cause of
failure the following points, viz: 1, Want of
self-confdence and backbone 2, Oyer-conti-
dence and too bIistlng backbone 3, Want
of foibearance toward parents;3, Want of
ballast for stormy weather. o, Failure to con-
suit the school directors 8, Lack of the nee
essary qualifications z; Failure to improve
the talents you have 8, Want of system 8,
too much system 10, Lack of common sense /;
II, Lack of courtesy II, Want OF earnest
effort Next on the programme was How
to teach reading" pretaced by an exercise in
calisthenics, by Professor DeGraffe. He
illustrated, 1st, The word methods 2,
Word building 3, Object 4, Sentences !;
., Phoncs; Z, Phonotypic 8, Look
and say g. Drawing 10, a, b, c., after which
he presented the following programme !,
Directions-1, Present an object 2, Ask
questions about ths object 8, Give inforrBa-
ton about the object A. Show picture of
the object 3, Make drawing of the object /;
6, Name the object Z, Print the word on the
board 8, Pupils copy the words 8, Group
words of similar formation and sound, into
phrases and sentences 10, Teacl. the elemen-
tary sounds; II, When necessary, teach the
names H. Cautions--l, Teach words as
wholes 9; Present about 100 words as whOles !;
3. at first only two or three words should be
given at lesson 4, AT first give no attention
TO spelling; D, Never let pupil attempt to
spell word audibly while reading 6, Teach
words which represent actions, qualities, re-
lations, &C., by objects or by their use in
sentence T. Teach new words, their use,
meaning and pronunciation s, Form chart
of the words developed. ILL., Results,
Naturalness of expression q Ease in ex-
preston 8 Accurate articulation 4, Ready
pronunciation. Miss Mcdonald read a paper
on Chow to instruct the little folks and how
to keep them employed" Attention was
called to mistakes made by teachers as notic-
ed by the County Superintendent in his visits
to the schools. Adjourned
EceaSng Session-Institute met at the usual
time; President in the chair. Music by the
Bloomfield string band "'rhe old cottage
clock" was sung by the Institute. VIM. E
Baker then read Parcassius. Music--"Twi-
lighti Falling" by the Institute. DR.. j. p.
Wickersham, state superintendent, was in
srOduced. who based his remarks on Prima-
mary Education in Europe and America. -
He contIasted the school houses, school furn-