Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-01-23
SCHOOLS OF TODAY.
THE CHANGE WHICH HAS COME
 OVER OUR METHODS.

How the Whole Tone of School Life H..
 Been Elevated-The Part Played by
 Pictures-Introductfon of Object Les
 sons.
 It is a curious thing that, side by side with the modern amenities in schooling, there sometimes comes in reaction against every- thing that can make learning attractive. 1t is like the theory which used to exist, that no drug could be really useful unless it gave out the full terrors of its natural taste and odor Sometimes even now, in out of the way places, one finds an old fashioned 6lruv shop (perhaps opening out of the very parlor of an old fashioned doctor1, where the mere atmosphere is as barbarous and forbiddinp as the strange foreign names of the articles sold there-coloquintida, perhaps, or ipecac- uanha. But the modern drug shop is called a pharmacy, and it aims to replace those vigorous old odors with others suggestive of Araby the Blest.
 A similar change has come over our school methods. can recall when battered desks and chopped benches were-xegarded as an essential part of even the private school sys- tenn. Why contend against ita it was asked i: boys were natural barbarians and would soon make the new look as badly as the old. Yet about that time the discovery was made that the way to secure respect for school fur niture was to make it respectable, and the boyish jackknife found other objects. So I can remember when the introduction of singing, and later of drawing, into our pub lie schools was regarded as finical whim suitable for girls school only. Emollit Inores; each of these practices is found to help school discipline and refine the taste, so that the whole tone of school life is elevated. I was fitted for college by teacher who never let his rattan go out of his hand except to lay it on his desk close by him. A public school principal who should now pursue this course would lose his place, and rightly; the very regulations of some communities re- quire that the rod, it. if exists, should be kept in the desk, out of sight, and that every blow should be afterward reported to the proper authorities.
 One of the most curious forms of this Grad grind severity is the crusade occasionally undertak en against all illustrations of school books. The most thoughtful and carefully designed work, in geography, in history, even in arithmetic, is supposed to be sufficiently condemned when it is called picture book. Yet it is period when all works for older persons-dictionaries, encyclopedias, histo- ries, magazines-have brought the art of pictorial illustrations to it's highest point. Webster and W orcester have alike adopted it. Justin Wlhsor's monumental "Narrative and Critical History of America" is crowded with portraits, Sautographs, fac-similes, and reproductions of historic pictures. The later editions of Gray's Botany of the Northern United States' have careful delineations of every historical genus. The American maga- zines have won the admiration of the world by their illustrations of all geographical and historical papers.
 MT. Edward Atkinson carried the art of pictorial exhibition even into political econ- omy, and is never quite happy till he can get his proposition embedded for the eye in parallel lines. The United States census re- port resorts to charts and curves and colored diagrams when it wishes fully to elucidate any important general result. All this is done for grown people-for the gravest, the maturest, the most educated. They, if any, are the persons who might fairly be asked to fix their minds clearly and austerely upon words and numerals, without stopping to the alleged frivolity of picture books. If they do not accomplish this if the very people who make the criticism arc only too glad to eke out their own imperfect knowledge by an illustrated magazine or an illustrated dic- tionary, is it not Q little absurd in them to enforce such grim abstinence upon school children!
 In an admirable article by the eminent French writer Professor Tn. Ribot on ''The Mechanism of Attention" he maintains a different theory. The infant child, he says, is at first under the sway of spontaneous att tention alone, noticing only bright objects or sustenance giving objects. By degrees it ob- serves things less selfishly interesting, begin ming at about the third month. The path is from the most intense, most impressive sensa- tions, to the finer and more delicate ones To fix and hold one sensation is an art that must be learned. "A child, for example, refuses to learn to read, but is vastly inter- ested in the pictures in the book. The father says that reading will show the meaning of the pictures. This acts as an artificial in- ducement, and the child goes to work, sub- stituting an artificial attention to arbitrary signs for the natural attractiveness of pict- ures" After C. while ''art has done its work, end attention has become second na- ture." All this is long since recognized in our schools in the introduction of object les. sons. Formerly pupils learned a definition of bird then they were taught something about birds structure; after that, if they were fortunate, they were taken to see some stuffed birds in Q museum. Now the stuffed bird, or better still, @ living one, is part of the school properties; that is shown first, and when curiosity is aroused the children readily learn about it. But as no school can havc annexed to it complete museum of natural history, geography and the history of the human race, the pictorial art comes in by way of substitute or preliminary
 No child can understand from words alone that there is any part of the world which is essentially different from his native town, but his first picture of Q glacier or 8 geyser, castle CT cathedral, the sphinx of Egypt or the Esquimau in his kayak, opens his eyes to the rest of the globe; he begins to be O man. It is even more true of history; the most skillful combination of words can never bring child SO near the mound builders or tho Pueblo Indians, to the puritans or the cavaliers, to tho revolutionary soldiers and the founders of our government, as he is brought by tho first good picture he sees TT. W. H." in Harper's Bazar.
 The Dear, Unselfish Creature.
 Mir. Sampson passionately)-I love you devotedly, Miss Chunley, but my pecuniary affairs have prevented my making a declara- tion until now But have put away enough now to feel justified in asking you to be my wife.
 Miss Chumley (hesitating but sweetly)-I confess that I am not wholly indifferent to you, but-but-
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