Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-07-07

The Second Days Session---Interest-
ing Proceedings

Reported officially for the CHRONICLE.
The teachers who have assembled in
Knoxville to attend the State Normal Ins.i-
tute have now fairly settled down to work.
The school is moving on with the regularity
of clock-work. Each professor having but
one lecture day to prepare, has ample time
to give to his subject and can therefore in
terest his audience.
The teachers all express themselves as
being entirely pleased with the instruction
they are receiving. When the bell taps for
| recitation to begin, quiet is Immediately re-
stored, and a hundred and fifty pencils are
moving rapidly over notebooks. The
| teachers are knuckling to it In dead earnest,
and it is now impossible to estimate the
amount of benefit that will be derived from
this session of the Institute. The register
received new accessions yesterday, and now
boasts of one hundred and forty-t on its
rolls, and a good many who have not yet
/ registered.
| The work of the morning was inaugu-
rated by lecture on mathematics by Prof.
| JAS Dinwiddie, of the University of Ten
nessee. Prof. Dinwiddie introduced his
subject by giving brief history of mathe-
mates. He referred to the ancient system
of Thales, Pythagores, Ptolemy, the
Arabic, &C., showing the slow progress it
made in ancient times, and giving a brief
review of the subject up to the year 1904,
when the browning subject of logarithms
was discovered by Napaler. For three or
! four centuries merchants used the old
Roman system of numbers. Even in the
| earlier and middle parts of the present
century, arithmetic, as it was then taught,
was but system of rules, perplexing and
meaningless to the child. This has become
obsolete, and newer and better methods are
being introduced.
Arithmetic is the science that treats of
pure numbers. The reason the course of
Mathematics is such labrynth of difficulty
to many, is that the one fundamental
branch, Arithmetic, has not been properly
learned The whole science is dependent
on the one fundamental idea Of l. 1t can
be shown to the pupil, but can no more be
explained than an axiom. Prof Dinwiddie
gave many happy illustrations of the power
mentioned the case of d. A. Sayre, Of Lex
ington, Va, at first an apprentice to a
blacksmith, who evinced such a talent for
reckoning discount and interest, that he
started bank with paltry sum of money,
and by dint of energy and careful attention
to business, amassed fortune. MIR. Sayre
could not make figure, and still he carried
on his banking business for twenty years,
making the most marvellous calculations in
mathematics.
Prof. d. related the incident of "light-
ming calculator " man going into Mr. Sayres
bank to sell him an instrument to compute
interest, and Mr.. Sayre could make his cal
culations before the man could get his ma
chine in working order.
At the conclusion of Prof Dinwiddie's
lecture, the school was ushered into the
University chapel, and Prof. f. Louis Sol
dan, of st. Louis, leetured on pedagogics.
After a review of the last lecture, he said
A teacher must know what he is going to
teach and under what conditions he is going
to teach it. How is it possible for child
to grasp knowledge? The teacher must
know the laws of childhood. The physical,
intellectual and moral feelings of the child
must be studied by the teacher. For the
first he must be acquainted with the laws
of physiology, anatomy and hygiene.
For the intellect and moral laws the teacher
must understand psychology, the science of
the mind. Different children develop diff
ferent powers of mind, and different ages
require different treatment. For this study
Prof S. recommended Benec1e's Psychol-
ogy, by Ran. He showed, in expressive
and convincing language, how a class of
forty may be studied and taught as well as a
class of two. Is there such thing as pro-
fessional knowledge for teachers? Are they
not born such? Certainly they are; SO are
painters, but the latter have to acquire per-
lection and even skill by long study and ex-
perience; SO it is with teachers. He closed
his remarks by quoting the words of a
famous English lecturer: Experience, it
is true, is good school, but fees are high
and the course is long and tedious"
The next lecture was one on Geology, by
Prof. Hunter Nicholson. After few words
ON mental physiology, which had before
been touched, he said: There are many
sciences, but only one method of scientific
investigation. First, to collect all the facts
that can be obtained on the subject Second,
power of classifying your facts. Third,
discovery by the test of experiment what
are the laws which underlie these facts. The
earliest period of school life corresponds to
the collection of facts The child is walk
ing? This is the period for such studies as
are adapted to satisfy and cultivate observa-
ton and discrimination. The studies best
adapted to satisfy these wants are the nat,
ural sciences, botany, physical geography
and geology.
Prof. Nicholson took a mind trip over the
State of Tennessee, going from Smoky
Mountains to the western border of the
State, observing the irregular surface caused
by upheaval, erasion, contortion, &c. In
the mountainous parts of East Tennessee
the rocks are folded, contorted, and some
in nearly a vertical position AS I'VE &c
westward we go up long sloping hills and
down short steep ones until we reach the
Cumberland plateau, where the rocks have
died from cOntortions and folding into I'm.
dulating leaves and finally into a horizontal
position. The round hills have raft rock Oh
top and the rugged crests are hard and
finty. The principle which underlies al
modern geology is that the forces that gave
rise to these diversities in the earth's sur
face are the same ones which are now il
operation and with nearly the same intensity
We may see the same forces going OF
around us that brought about these stipend
GUS changes and irregularities of the EARTH
surface. Prof Nicholson, in few words
pictured the formation of the American con
tinent millions of years before man came
on earth; when there was but V shaped
mass of land running up through Canada t.
Labradoc and down to Illinois, and only
strip, probably 100 miles wide, occupying
where the coast range and Appalachian
H.