The Press., 1890-04-10

ory takes any stronger grip on thing while the pupil stands. At last taught few with good memories to ''parse. I worked hard with that grammar class, and was very proud of their proficiency until found that after months of this drilling they neither spoke nor wrote any better English than before.
 However, lost nothing by this ex- perience, for it helped me to the convic- tion that have held to ever since, that the entire grammar system and method does very little to make one habitually use correct language, and that taste for oreading and constant association with correct English speaking people does a great deal. As for spending time in 'parsing," think it would be better to use that force in learning the boy to shoe horses and the girl to make bread, or let the girl shoe the horses if she wants to and the boy make the bread.
 The labor of teaching the alphabet to ten infants, calling them up once an hour s'to say their letters," is, in my estimation, greater than that of swing ing pick in the surface gold .'diggings." have tried both, and infinitely prefer
 
 you are employed with them as when you are occupied with the other pupils. Then these poor little alphabetical cherubs can do nothing but squirm on their low benches, catch flies, pinch each other, make and project spit balls and hold up their hands for another drink of water. could not let them out of doors to play in the sand, where they should have been, because the North American parent would have considered himself as defrauded of part of his infants schooling were they not imprisoned the whole six hours.
 Neither can you set child to studying A or NJ or any other letter. There is not an idea in A or B. During the two years of my administration I wrought with fully beyond r. Her parents questioned my ability as a teacher. Some days she would repeat the whole alphabet cor rectly. would go home with load off my mind. The next day her mind would relapse into an alphabetical blank after F. She grew to be an eyesore to me. The sight of her at last made me sick.
 held public examinations every six months, and was careful to do all the examining myself. An interloper among the audience invited did me great dam- ago on one of these memorized perform ances by asking simple arithmetical question of the show off geograp phical boy. The urchin was brilliant in dealing with boundary lines, capes and islands, but his head was one that mathematics could not readily be injected into. On the other hand, my specimen grammar ian was as likely to describe an island as a body of land surrounded-by land as by water. had no heart to find fault with this poor barefooted urchin who, when in class, was always trying to stand on one leg, like a crane, and send ing his right big toe on exploring scratch ing expeditions up his left trouser. He had been born and brought up in an in- land country, where no body of water was to be seen save an occasional f1eeting mud puddle; and what earthly concep- tion could he form of the ocean and it's islands?
 But the parents who attended these exhibitions of stuffed memories were struck at the proficiency of the progeny, and retired with the impression that their children knew great deal because they had parroted off SD much that was all Greek to them; and after had been in this occupation year would sit in my empty theological school house when they had gone and try and convict my self as profound humbug, and one, too, compelled, in order to get living, to encourage and foster system which had so much humbug in it.
 The California schools were not then graded" They were conducted on the Ego as you please plan, sometimes go- ing as the teachers pleased, sometimes as the parents pleased, sometimes as the pupils pleased. The parents of the youth full brains was trying to develop into future statesmen and presidents wanted me to teach many things. One father wished his son taught Latin. It is bring ing extremes pretty near each other to teach Latin and A B Cs. But taught the young man Latin as I was taught" many things at school. I started him committing to memory the Latin declen- sions and conjugations, and then heard hint ''say his lesson" If he got any OuG O1 Ab uOu hLlOW WIdU It was, except tough work. He never reached any translations of the classics, for sev- eral reasons.
 Another father was annoyed because I exercised his son mathematically in what, in those days, were called "vulgar fractions" ''I don't want" said he, "my son to have anything to do with frac- tions, anyway. They're no use in biz ness. Ennything over half cent we call cent on the books, and ennything under it we don't call nothin'. But I want Thomas to be we'll grounded in 'tare and tret.'"
 So grounded Thomas in ''tare and trs.." He grew up, took to evil ways, and was hung by a vigilance committee somewhere in Southern California. A boy who stammered very badly was sent me. was expected to cure him. Five or six of my pupils were Mexicans, and spoke very little English.
 One of my hardest trials was great, stout boy, so full of vitality that he could not remain quiet at his desk. could