Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-04-20
The school at Iron MountaiD


done in the Arcadia Valley Teachers' Insti-
school, it was deemed advisable to visit that
institution. Accordingly ON the 10th inst,
leaving home ut twenty minutes before six
O'Clock A. NJ, reached Iron Mountain at
twenty minutes before ten.
The school building is very neat and sub
stantial frame, containing three rooms, one
of which is unoccupied. The rooms are suf-
ficiently spacious, well lighted, warmed, and
seated, and furnished with every appliance
needed in teaching. The enrolment for
register is 204; average daily attendance tor
the year, 139. Mr.. A. p. Vance is about to
enter his third year as Principal. Mr.. III. c..
Davis, as First Assistant, has charge Of the
intermediate Department. At present the
scholars in the Primary are assigned to the
other departments.
Every possible courtesy was shown to me,
and every possible facility was afforded for
seeing the working of the school, the teach
ers being requested not to vary their usual
programme. spent five hours and q half in
the school room, going from room to room
at will, taking part in recitations, hearing
lessons, and examining classes; and In re-
spect to good order and accuracy and readi-
ness in recitations, it is an excellent school.
It would be very difficult to equal Mr.. Davis in
teaching object lessons by the word method.
He is also very successful i'm teaching the first
lessons of geography and arithmetic. In
short, the work Of his department is faith
fully done.
In what might be called intermediate
arithmetic Mr.. Vance has very tudicially
adopted Rays Rudiments, which is the best
text book extant on that subject. In the
higher departments of arithmetic Mr.. Vance
is very clear-headed, his instructions being
to the point and concise. In grammar he is
somewhat conservative as yet, but he will
become sufficiently radical, for he holds to
principles which will make him so. For in
stance, he believes in classifying words ae-
cording to the duties they perform in the
sentence. That idea carried out will revolu-
tionize our whole science of grammar. At
tention was also called to the fact that there
are laws over language, and that the power
to correct false syntax involves the power
correct the whole sentence in which the syn
tax is found, and that whilst it may be well
u Keep OIL our DOOk SONuctnlllg 10 re-
strain men from killing poetasters and other
| word pliers, yet the public is entitled to
some protection against them. This can be
best secured by teaching the scholar.to re-
duce complex and compound sentences to
| simple ones and every sentence to Its SIM
plest form.
It was pleasant to see very sparing use
of the spelling book in the school. The class
in history had recited before Preached the
school. Both teachers are strict economists
Of time. This appears in three ways. Their
explanations are clear and brief; they often
have one class on the recitation bench and
another at the blackboard, and keep them
both going well; and their explanations are SO
full of suggestion, that they furnish the
scholar with material for thought when he is
out of school.
left Iron Mountain at ten minutes to six
p. M. and at ten minutes to ten lighted my
lamp at home, and soon went to bed thor
oughly tired, pleased and repaid for my
twenty miles, walk. T. G.