The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1891-01-02
Colorado Schools.
MISS MoLLIE e. cARRUTHERs.

| my paper would be rather meagre, for my
experience i'm the west was not i'm any ro-
mantically isolated district where adventures
are expected as matter of course, but In q
good sized village, much more like n city
than most eastern villages are. Then, too,
teaching there is much the same as teaching
anywhere else, for the State is no longer
young and there is not much about its
people or its methods that savors of the new
country.
But the teacher in Colorado. whether in
country or city, especially If he be native
of an eastern state, sees much that is novel
and instructive outside of the school room.
In fact, If he Is i'm search of health, pleasure
or beauty-beauty of scenery and climate, i
mean-there is, ] believe, no better place
for him to go. And l have concluded to
tell you about the most pleasant events that
i remember, connected swith school work
there, which was q teachers institute, held
in August, last year, in the little mountain
city of Ouray, i'm southwestern Colorado,
about fifty miles from Telluride. the town
in which l was living. On my return from
a camping trip in the mountains late i'm
July, was informed by the secretary Of
the school board, that he expected every
teacher to do her duty at the institute and
incidentally reminded that the perform
ance thereof would entitle her to an addi-
ton of ten per cent to her standing Mt the
next examination and an extra weeks pay.
But the trip itself, over one of the most
picturesque roads in the world, Pm con-
WINGED, and two weeks in Ouray ought to
have been inducement enough for anyone.
The institute was splendidly conducted
by Prof. Triplet, of Golden, who knows
how to make interesting the dryest of didac-
tics and 1t was attended by nearly all Of the
teachers in six counties. The enrolment
there was not over forty-five or fifty, l
think. Miss Hutchins and and myself, the
two teachers from Telluride, were dubbed
the lone hundred per cent of San Minguel
county," and as that county is perhaps three
times as large as Shawassee, you can readi-
ly see that the teacher in the mountain dis
tricts of Colorado is rare, If neither rich nor
racy.
The program was highly instructive, COM
prising lectures by the state superintendent
OF public instruction and several other
eminent educators, but it is not so much of
the institute want to tell you, as of some
things which attending it brought us to see.
for Ouray is beautiful and its surroundings
furnish to the tourist fresh charm for
every mile he has come to see it.
AT the close of each afternoon session,
sailed gaily out to make excursions up hill
and down canon, walking miles to explore
deserted mine and gather crystals which
they Immediately threw away, scrambling
up and down hills never made to climb and
coming home very tired, very hungry, very
dilapitated as to shoes and muscles; but
bringing in memOry's portfolio sketches of
scenes which could never fade from the
dullest mind and fresh appreciation of
nature that would have repaid twice the
effort. Now and then few men were in
weighed into these excursions and one hap
less professor, too mild to resist and too
agreeable to object, won quite reputation
by cheerfully carrying numberless umbrellas
and calamity hauling fat ''school mains"
up steep side hills, but he was one i'm an
institute, for the percentage of men among
teachers i'm the west is about as small as in
the east, and he proved unequal to the task
and left for home at the end of the first
week.
One interesting trip was made to the out
skirts OF the town where some hot springs
are. The water gushes out of the ground at
temperature quite sufficient we were told
by those best informed, to boil eggs. No
one had brought any eggs but believed it,
because drank some of the water. make
when sightseeing, partly because | think
it polite to do so and partly because l have
more to remember-and to tell-afterwards.
This hot water runs through the town in
little stream, in the bed of which an odl
looking plant grows. Some of the in
habitants make use of the water by running
pipes from the stream into their homes.
very instructive visit was made at an
assayer's Office where we saw gold extracted
from ore; but the browning trip of all was
an excursion by stage over what is known
as the "Red Mountain toll road.'
The Denver and Rio Grande railroad has
several branches running into southern
Colorado and the termini of two of them
are Ouray and Ironton. Between these
two stations is wagon road, famed for its
beauty which forms the keystone of the
regulation trip into and ont of the San Juan
country, as that portion of Colorado is called.
DIR. Moore, of Denver, said i'm his lecture
before the institute, that in extended
European travel, he had never in SwitZer-
land nor anywhere else seen anything to
equal the grandeur of the scenery along
that ten miles of wagon road. The road
runs through deep canon and portion of
it was blasted out of solid rock. From an
engineers point of view it is said to be an
exceedingly fine piece of work, but from a
tourists it looks extremely dangerous. A
few miles beyond Honton is the village of
Red Mountain. The teacher who repre-
sented that part of the country was young
Scotch Canadian girl who will long be re-
membered by some of the members of that
institute, for in her hospitality she invited
the whole body to dine at her cabin near
Red Mountain. About q dozen OF us ac-
cepted the invitation and one bright morn
| ng chartered an open four-horse stage and
| started out over this famous toll road. The
first stop was made few miles out where
we all alighted to peer over the edge of the
road at Bear Creek Falls, by which piece of
| beauty the Ouray people swear. And it is
beauty; little stream Of water letting out
of rift in the rock and making an almost
direct descent of four hundred feet, ending
| i'm spray and then gathering itself again
into quiet little rill and running on to the
river below. Those little streams are one
of the prettiest features of the mountains
They are so numerous, one finds them
everywhere; so bright and sparkling, you
could almost think their ripples carried
diamonds, and withal, characteristic of Il g
! country, for they rush and hurry with a
breathless sort of chatter as If their one
ambition w IN on aud now ondfhot, m, n lya