Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1884-02-23

The large room was suitably dressed
for the occasion and a number of
handsome pictures adorned the walls.
The other rooms of the building were
also handsomely decorated, rejecting
great credit on teachers and pupils.
The exercises were opened with
song and chorus entitled "Come where
the Lilies Bloom" Miss Annie Harris,
the well known music teacher, presid-
ed at the organ with her usual grace.
and tho various parts were we'll sus-
tanned by Misses Annie Williams,
Katie Bath, Lizzie Fuller, Veanie Full
Ter and Messrs. John E. Johns, Her
bert Johns and Samuel Johns.
An address of welcome was then de-
livered by Mr.. j. E. J. Buckley, princi-
pal Of the school, who spoke as follows:
Ladies and Gentlsmen-Before saying any
formal words Of welcome, which are reserved
for the present wish to make this meeting
an occasion for rapid survey OF some aspects
of the school question. ! hold that meetings
of this kind are too infrequent Teachers
live such an isolated life, see SO little of each
others work. have such scant opportunities
of visiting other schools, that they miss one
Of the best kinds of mental discipline in the
world--I mean that sharpening of the facul-
ties which comes from the friction of mind
ON mind and which gives the lawyer, business
man and general man of the world his quick
ness and accuracy of mental activity. am
in favor Of half-doZen county institutes a
year. They would add to the efficiency of the
schools Rut and routine are the choke
damp of teaching, and nothing SO breaks up
rut and routine as to hear the experience and
learn the methods of some one who is doing
thing IN better way than yourself Insti-
tutes, moreover, create an esprit da corps, fos-
ter free masonry Of social intercourse and
raise the level Of professional ethics. Wheth-
er an institute is to be success, however, de-
ponds altogether on how the work is blocked
out. 1t can easily degenerate into mere
jackdaw parliament and verbal inundation
Of no conceivable value. believe in large
amount of technical work and few generali-
ties. Mere opinions may be ornamental but
scarcely useful. What We can profit by are
the ideas and methods that have been time
tried and experience-testsd in the school
room.
No science OF art has made such strides in
the past fifty years as that of teaching. All
the old landmarks are swept aside and the
whole business completely revOlutionized.
The old type Of pedagogue, with arithmetic
in every line of his pinched face, and geom-
etry in every angle of his arms and legs,
waspish, juiceless, an "Wednesday face, II
most solemn bore, his head rafting with
nouns, adjectives, pronouns and the rule of
three, has almost passed away and where he
still survives is regarded with as much Curl
osity AZ Silurian fossil His place has been
| taken by the man-of-the- world teacher, who
has elected his profession and loves it as his
noblest life work, and whose training and
equipments make him the peer of the best
men in the other professions He is abreast
| of the most advanced thought of the day, and
| his head is full of modern ideas.
am aware that long before Ichabod Crane
! was sketched or the Deserted Village penned,
| the pedagosue has been the butt of satire md
! ridicule. He has been regarded as meek,
| sheepish sort of individual, bookish it may
be, but altogether unfit for the practical af-
| fairs of life This, think, is no longer so.
| Our modern teacher is about as wide awake
| and practical as anybody. But the old type
was held in great disesteem because education
| in former days was almost entirely limited to
the higher classes, and the university profes-
sor was the representative man of our pro
fsssion. But with the enfranchisement of the
masses, the birth of all that stream of pro.
gress that we call modern civilization, with
the Advancement Of the educated laboring
| men ~ the prime factors Of our social fabric,