St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-12-31
WHAT OUR TEACHERS WANT.

in addition to having a pleasant social
reunion the state educators are discussing
some exceedingly live subjects in connec-
ton with educational matters. The dis
cussions yesterday took a wide range and
embraced many topics of peculiar interest
at this time. But, while the teachers are
generously discussing questions relating to
the education of children and the establish
ment of a more perfect system of public in
struction, it might not be out of the way to
discuss few subjects pertaining more eX-
clusively to themselves. In our endeavors
10 build up and perfect system of public
education we have almost forgotten, or
entirely overlooked, the fact that some
thing is due to the teachers who are to con-
duct the schools as well as to the scholars
who are to be taught in them. So far as
the teachers are concerned, the one great
need in our school system is more elbow
room. The teachers want more latitude
and wider range for the development of
the science of teaching. A great defect in
our educational system is the repression OF
teachers. They are held down by statutes
and restricted by school boards and trustees
so that no opportunity is given for the de-
velopment of individuality in the teachers,
and consequently there is no chance for the
teacher to develop individuality in the pu-
pills. The school law attempts to introduce
too much method into the school room.
The teacher is reduced to the condition of
machine and is expected to grind out just
so much grammar and SO much geography,
as the days grist. Together with legal
provisions and regulations prescribed by
school boards the teachers platform is so
whitfield down that he, or she, is left with
out standing room. The automatic cOndi
ton to which the schoolmaster is reduced by
the present system Of public education re-
presses his ambition and deadens his ener-
gies. The teacher wants more room. He
wants the opportunity to display his capa-
bilities and the inducement to fall in love
with his profession. He wants to be left
free to study the dispositions and mental
capacities Of his pupils, in order that
several Municipalities. AS it is, with
the restrictions that are imposed upon him
and the crowded condition of his class
room, all that he can do is to measure out
education tohis pupils-just as the merchant
measures his cloth-with yard stick. He
cuts off an equal number of pieces of read
ing and writing and grammar and arith-
metic to each pupil without any regard to
the fit of the cloth or the size of the child'S
mental calibre. The result of such a sys-
TEN is sort of Mother Hubbard educa-
tion-fits nowhere and is as unsightly as
could be. And yet the teacher is not to
blame. All is done that can be done. The
teacher has done all the work that is posi-
BILE to be done with so little elbow ROOM. 1t
is true that the teachers are often blamed
by unthinking people for the failure
of their children's education. They have
an idea that because the children
are rushed through the school hopper like so
many grains of wheat through the Touring
mill that they all ought to come out with
the same degree of fineness and the bran
| all bolted out. They seem to forget that
| as ''silken purses cannot be made of sOw's
ears" so teachers cannot make smart
men and women out of shallow Drained
children. In view of the prevalent miscon-
| ceived notions of teachers position and
| opportunities it is altogether appropriate
| that the teachers themselves should COM
mence the agitation of one of the most I'M
portant of all the reforms that are needed
| in our educational system-that of securing
| for themselves more elbow room.