The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-03-08

i,.yc:tu. ions in
tn Ia. = -. i,1-of.-.s to give
u9lY...'s:t =. s.,tt:.s9a ;a,,{ "oiifer degrees
r,sss :, 81 '-,e5t.vn ca Equal terms with
male stuc; rs
Insiian@ has now school population
of 714-#t2. at39 expended in public in
stI5ietiau fjsari.,~ tire pest year 81 &c.,
2i0 70. Tier total receipts for school
purposes were fS5, SO, 42054 The
school enrolment last year was 503. S55.
About one-fourth of the children in
Cleveland schools are of German parent
age, and receive instruction in German
and in English. About one in eight of
the children Of English-speaking pa
rents are in the German classes.
4 party Of students of mechanical en-
gineerine of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology made q Journey last week
through the manufacturing towns of
Massachusetts and Connecticut, exam
ming carefully the shops and factories
in each.
The woman teachers Of the junior d.
visions CT the Toronto schools have APP
piled to the School Board for increased
salaries, arguing that at $27 a month
they cannot support themselves and
continue their training; and that kitch-
en- sel1ants are in far better position.
One of the most encouraging evil
dences of educational progress in this
country is the attention which school
authorities are beginning to give to the
intelligent study of the English Ian
guage. Under the system, which is
now being gradually changed, pupils
were made to commit to memory g vast
array of rules. which served them not at
all in speaking and writing. Many
have been the graduates of Normal
schools incapable of writing a common
place letter correctly and with ease.
Teachers often complain, and with
truth, that their profession is not esti-
mated at its proper value by the public
that while it demands from them as
entire devotion as law or medicine can
ask from those who practice them, these
two vocations take rank very far above
it. The fault does not lie altogether
with the public; while the profession
has SO many ill-trained, half-educated
members, it can never occupy the place
in which all reasonable people would
like to see it. There is q peculiar dog
matisn1 apparently inseparable from the
Office of teacher which is uncomfortable to
the average outsider unless il is accom-
panied by thorough ability. When that
happy day arrives when political infiu-
ence goes out of the schools, and COM
potency and love of the work become
the tests by which the teacher is judged,
the profession viii make long stride in
the popular estimation.
No careful observer has ever failed to
see that the chief troubles and disap-
pointlnents of the public schools come
from the employment of teachers who
have taken up the work merely to earn
living and not because they have q
natural aptitude for dealing with vary
ing natures and imparting ideas. To
lead and enlarge young mind requires
peculiar tact and temper, and not every
person emerging from a normal school
and carrying a new certificate is fitted
for the work. There is not a little good
sense in this paragraph from the Lon
don Globe: For q man to be success
full teacher he must be sympathetic with
boys, there must Enger within him an
ever-iuvenile element, en- rapport with
their modes of thought, sensible of their
prejudices and suspicious, abreast of all
those important discoveries for Sinking
work to which each generation manages
to add something new, willing to see
their individual struggles, to cheer on
their ambitions and condole their de-
feats. Neither the high and dry style
answers with boys, nor the too gushing
and condescending former repels
them, the latter means the concession
of that unnecessary inch which is the
of an ell. -