The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1886-01-27

Read at the Teachers Convention,
Dec. 20, 1885.
There is nothing so taking as
something new, and the educational
and other periodicals of the last few
months have rung many changes on
the new, as compared with the old,
claiming for the former all that is
worth knowing or doing in school
work.
No doubt there have been changes;
we do not need TO go back to the
dark ages TO point the contrast;
our memories can easily recall the
weather-beaten old school-house,
unshaded and unsheltered by
friendly trees, exposed to the
tiercest heat of summer and the
hardest storms of winter altogether
such buildings as no scientific or
intelligent farmer of the present day
would use to shelter cattle or
sheep. The inside was in perfect
harmony with the outside; UNI
painted pine desks, popularity be-
lieved to have been made old, as no
memory of living resident could
reach back to the time when they
were unmarked by ink or knife:
hard, narrow benches, affording
scant support for growing lads, and
so high that little legs danglcd pain
fully: a stove that ranged from
red heat to sullen smouldering
that allowed the frost to gather on
the windows limited allowance of
blackboard, but of maps, globes and
other apparatus not even that, while
the variety of textbooks suggested
secondhand book stall.
Two terms a year, of twelve
weeks each, and usually new
teacher every term, was the COM
mon arrangement; yet even under
such discouraging circumstances,
there was work done that told for
good on the future lives of pupils.
Many an earnest, enthusiastic stu
dent, not of books only, but of boys
and girls as well, succeeded during
those few weeks in awakening an
eager thirst for knowledge that sent
out into the world men and women
who saw and thought, and n few
who have in after life done much to
raise the standard of public senti-
ment, and helped to refine and
elevate surrounding lives, gained
their first upward impetus from
some early teacher. If printed
books were not so abundant as
later, the few possessed were mas
tered, and perhaps the volume of
nature received more earnest, rever-
ent attention than is often given
now.
The present tells different
story; school buildings are erected
that are justly the pride of the peo-
pie; books of reference, maps,
globes and numberless other aids
help to broaden and make easier
the paths of learning, but do we
dare claim that all the reforms tend
to reformation? Are we sure that
there is not so much pouring in
done, that there is little opportunity
for the drawing OUT which con,
stitutes the truest education!
In the earlier days some com
mittee or superintendent visited the
school once term, and after alter
nately doing and listening through
the recitations for half q day, made
set speech, congratulating thu
pupils on the "commendable pro
gress" they had made; but are W.
sure that the many supervisors wh'
now ride their own particular hob
bies into the schools every few days
are really any more helpful il
the work of developing the pupil
into thinking, self-reliant men ant
women?
When one school visitor insist
that every word read or spelled shall
be made clear to the dullest pupil
another, that none shall be promoted
who have not mastered the intrica
cies of mental and written arith
metic; another demands that ever,
pupil shall sing like nightingale
another is sure that no school is ;
success where the pupils are no
drilled in mechanical and artistic
drawing; another would have every
teacher live, read and study solely
with q view to enlightening thu
pupils on every subject at all con
nected with any part of the world il
which we live; and yet anothe
would have one corner of the schoo
room set apart as a menagerie, tina
the children may study from rea
life the different animals therein
contained, where and how can
teacher find opportunity to be or d
what nature and education have de
signed? Are teachers and pupil
mere machines? Ii to make thel
such is the aim of schools, better Il
once start an autOmatOn factory