The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-05-07
EDUCATIONAL.
Dithcult Questions tn he settled by q
Teacher of Latin in High Schools.
Influence of Public School Teachers--POpu-
lar Ignorance-New or Current
Ideas,
LATIN GRAMMAR,

Prof. c. w. Tufts. principal of the
city and township high school ut Ottawa,
ILL.,, writes as follows to the journal OF
Education:
Among the difficult questions for a
teacher of Latin in the high school to
settle are;
How much Latin Grammar shall be
given in the higll-schOol course? What
shall it beP What for each year? One
teacher takes his pupils rapidly through
Caesar, Cicero, Vergil, and perhaps
Horace and Livy. He gives them
Roman history and geography of an
cient Italy. At the end of tho four years
he Is surprised to find that although
they can translate very readily, they
all get heavy conditions when they
attempt to enter such colleges rs Har-
ward. Yale, Ann Arbor, or COrnell-all
conditional in grammar. The fault with
this teacher is, he has almost utterly
disregarded the grammar, except few
outlines absolutely necessary to make a
translation.
Another teacher sits at his desk,-a
veritable, grim Gradgrind,-looks
savage. and declares that he will be
thorough. Thorough, thorough; how he
harps on that word! If children were
jugs, into which knowledge could be pour
ed and made to stay there, he would be
the ideal teacher; but they are not jugs.
AS it is, he squeezes all the juice out of
Latin. and makes it dry as dead mems
bones. He makes his pupils hate Latin
till they fairly dread to get lesson.
have known class of thirty to dwindle
down to four, i'm four years, under such
teacher; four weak-eyed, round
shouldercd, sickly, overworked pupils
left to graduate in the Latin course, so
broken in health that they could not 90
(and did nOt) through the college
course which they entered upon so free
from conditions.
Between these two extremes there
must be q middle course. which should
be followed by the teacher who desires
to make the high school what it ought
to be; who desires to make strong, long
winded men and women of his pupils;
who desires to do the greatest good to
the greatest number; who &c res TO
reach the masses of the pupils who
come to him, and graduate large classes
OF ordinary young men and women,-
not small classes of intellectual prodi-
gies.
A pupil is not expected to know every
thing about Latin when he enters
college. If such knowledge were his,
the college would be useless for him.
Most of us use Latin grammars which
are calculated for high-schoOl and
college use as well. A large part of the
contents of any one of these grammars
should not be loaded upon the memory
of high-school pupils. Hence. the heavy
responsibility of culling is left to the
teacher. How many of us give as much
time and study us ought2
Every point except the mere outline
should be weighed by the teacher with
the utmost care This question should
be constantly before him: "Will the
effort to remember this point be
more of hindrance to my pupils than
the knowledge of it will be helpP"
II is better to teach too little, and teach
it well, than TO attempt to teach too
much and get our pupils all mixed up.
The things which the average pupil re-
member are not those which have been
brought up in class two or three times,
but those that have been before them
scores of times. In visiting a large
number of high schools have been inn
pressed with the fact that the majority
Of teachers ask only such grammatical
questions rs they themselves happen to
remember, and omit such rs have be-
come rusty TO them, when perhaps the
rusty point is the very one the pupil
needs.