Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-02-23
Dull BOYS or Dull Teachers (?

Our agricultural friend of the Freeman,
in noticing Dr. Buckham's address, makes
some very sensible criticisms, but "kicks
over the pail at last in saying "There
are boys with quite degree of natural
shrewdness and ability, who, if they went
to school from July to tarnity,' as old
Neighbor Soapewell said, would never like
study or make scholars but they can handle
plow or break pair of steers or guess on
their weight with any man going, and would
comprehend and seize any practical improve
ments in farming, and utilize ideas which
better educated man, with less taste in that
direction and less executive ability, would
fail of doing" That there are plenty of
boys in the schools as we have them, with
all their antiquated methods of teaching
swords, words, words, words often utterly
without meaning to the pupil-whose expe-
rience is well described in the above para
graph, is unquestionably true. But Brother
Tinkham, it seems to us, is putting the sad
die on the wrong horse. He does not seem
TO think it possible that the fault may be in
the teacher or in his stereotyped methods of
teaching, rather than in the boy. We are a
little touchy on this point, because we hap
pen to have been just one of that kind of
boys. Brother Tinkham is but one of mil
lions in his view of the matter. Only here
and there one has happened to guess which
tree the coon is in. Probably we should
have been deluded like the rest, but for our
individual experience. For those minds
which have an unmeasured capacity to
memorize words dissociated from ideas,
our schools are tolerably well adapted. To
be sure, man of sense might enquire what
good the training which regards ideas as no
essential part of an education is likely to do
Stuffing boy with words, as cook stuffs
a turkey with bread crumbs and sage, is
pretty poor education for any practical pur-
pose. Therefore boy who has " "ciphered
through" any number of arithmetics usu-
ally has, when he goes into counting room,
to learn the arithmetic of business from the
bottom, and it is SO with every other branch
of school learning. 1t is not practical, be-
cause the teachers themselves don't know
the branches they teach, in their practical
bearinSo.
The class of boys that Brother Tinkham
refers to can be taught in schools, but the
teaching, so to speak, must be turned the
other end to. They must be taught in the
knowledge of things first Then, having an
idea at the bottom, they learn t0ords explain
atory of that idea without much difficulty.
We were shut up by teacher once, for three
days, to learn half a page of words from
which we were unable to extract a single
idea. He called it "stubbornness" Another
bad boy happening to be sent into the same
room where we were confined, and being
posted about the matter, explained it so that
in ten minutes we had memorized those
"cussed" rules, and walked in to the master
and said them. But those words would
have refused forever, like oil and water, to
mix with what we already knew, unless
somebody had "set the switch" for us by
which connection could be made. We did
not think of blaming the teacher, or the sys
tenn of teaching, then. We honestly thought
that in some inscrutable way we were, as we
were told, ourself in fault. We don't think
so now. We know better. When teacher
who knew how to teach got hold of us We
learned fast enough. Now a teacher who
"cant do anything with that kind of boy
is just like half-taught blacksmith who
"can't shoe that kind of horse" or a sloucf
matchmaker who can't fix any but the com
monest watches, or the scrub farmers whc
can't make good sugar, or good butter, o.
succeed with an orchard. He just DOM
know his business, and that is all there il
about it.