New-York tribune., 1881-09-01
NOTES ON EDUCATION.


setts Teachers Institutes this autumn upon
methods of teaching history.
The school population of California is 2ll'%SI
and the fund now awaiting apportionment IN tne
State Treasury amounts to S1-'3,Z3| %.
The proposed revision of the Education Code IN
England provides that sewing shall be compulsory
for all girls aud for boys under seven years Oh age
The number of young ladies receiving university
degrees increases every year in France. Mile
Durand of Rouen, has just received the diploma oil
Letters and Rhetoric from the Faculty of Caen.
A special fund is being raised in England to for
ward a project for establishing school banks
throughout the country in connection with the
elementary schools. The National Thrift Society is
moving III the matter.
The scientific departments at Swarthmore College
have outgrown the space originally given TO them.
and the institution is to be enlarged next year. The
practical construction of machinery is favorite
work with the students
The University of Melbourne, Australia has now
abont 500 students The great want of this uni.
versity is a char of modern languages and htera-
ture No opportunity whatever Is offered 10 Aus
traiIan students to pursue tins study.
The Bulgarians said to have made rapid
strides in the field Of public instruction. In all
towns and villages are schools, either Communal or
Government and more than go per cent of the
children i'll attendance. The teachers are men
OF good education, and profession in the prnci-
pality is considered more honorable, is
honorably filed, than that of school-maSter-
Mr. w. T Reid, the new President of California
University, said in hs inaugural address the other
day that the neglect of provision for the study of
English in English-speakng communities is perhaps
more remarkable thau anything else connected
with modern education and that most college
courses seem framed upon the idea either that
students already have sufficient knowledge of
English to make further special study time i'll spent,
or that we have l title worth reading in our own
tongue.
"The University of Michigan" The Detroit Post
and Tribune says Z" not only exists without rowing,
but it actually presents the extraordinary phepome
non of having more students and being u larger and
more successful educational institution than any
other in the country. without much a solitary
rowing club, crew, boat, oar anywh here about its
premises It certainly educates large number of
well trained doctors. lawyers, engineers and gen.
eraI scholars; though whether that is of any use,
since they can't row, may seem to some people
doubtful"
superintendent J. b. Peaslee of Cincinnati,
teaches very young pupils how TO add and subtract
by means of small sticks He requires these sticks
to be counted all moving the sticks at the same
time and in the same direction. Unless the pupil
pays close attention he loses the count and
confusion in the class. This method therefore euti-
Yates carefulness and the power of observation.
Mr.. Peasee especially urges that the first thing to
be accomplished in teaching arithmetic is to inspire
sef-confdence IN the pupil. and he deprecates the
presentation OF diiucult and intricate problems
10 beginners.
Myopia is said to be greatly increasing among the
children in the schools of Germany. 1t becomes
marked as the children rise into the higher
classes. The recent examination embraced 10000
children, and it found that the number of
short-sighed in The elementary classes was from
TO III per cent In the higher school for girls the
proportion from 10 to "a per cent in the real
schaten it was between 30 and 10 per cent; in the
gymnasia between 80 and 90; and in the two
highest classes of all between 80 and IS per cent
In an examination of 600 stud nts of theology at
Tubngen it found that 20 per cent suffered
from myopia, and this frequency was attributed 10
the small Grabbed print of the dictionaries. German
scholars ought to that this presents an unan-
swerabe argument in favor of the substitution of
Roman Tor German text.
IL all the rural schools of Vermont are in the con-
dition of those in Orange County, the next genera
tion in that State will not be wel-trained one.
correspondent of The WdtchmaR says: In this town,
at least, large proportion of the schools are un-
worthy of the name not fulfilling in any respectable
degree the purpose for which they were esta5-
hshed.. In many the teachers were utterly
incompetent but, worst of all, the parents never
discover the fact Any teacher who can be hired
for 81 so a week, and who has sufficient education
TO work most of the examples in the arithmetic
with the book before her, is considered perfectly
NJ capable of teaching the school, In almost every
di trict in this town it to be the sole aim of
the committee and parents to hire cheap teacher
though they are perhaps ample enough tor such
teachers most of our schools have for things
are dear at any price I'm this town, but three dis
tricts make any pretensivns to globe or maps, and
III more than one school-house there is hardly a
square foot of blackboard fit for use; no district
provides textbooks for the teacher"
SUPERINTENDENT Luckey, of Pittsburg says that
how best to teacL children the correct use Of the
English language is of the unsolved problems
of the age, and adds that children in the primary
departments should be required to talk much, and
their errors should be carefully corrected by the
teacher He suggests that each pupil should be
required to give short description each day of
something ht has seen his way to or from school,
or to repeat in his words a short story pre-
viously read aloud by the teacher. Mr.. Luckey
thinks that the grammar department pupils should
be obliged to write great deal, especially letters
And with great good sense he suggests that in the
upper grades the teaching of geography and history
be conducted in connection with current events
For example," he says, 4" let the daily paper be
judiciously cued by the teacher and the principal
items of local, national and foreign news placed on
the blackboard and disc usseG ;y une teacher while
the pupils locate upon cir mrps the several places
referred to. BY this III the pupil is familiar
lied with the main events transpirng in the great
world that lies outside and beyond all textbooks
and backgrounds. The pupil who has traced out
upon his map the proposed route of the Ncaraguan
Canal finds an interest in geography which does not
usually attach TO n cape, an Istnmus or an archi-
peago and on. This exercise brings into ulav
all the mental faculties of the pupil his powers 0f
observation are trained; his thinking becomes
accurate; he begins to forTu opinions, and graspng
Peneralitles, he rs not confined to del ails: his
faculties for acquiring Information are no longer
clrcumscribed by the four walls of the school
room. but he reaches out. ana in his acquaintance
with the world, becomes a cOsmC potan. The use
N he han nfIa ~