St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-12-30
SCIENCE FOR YOUNGSTERS.
Teachers Discuss an Interesting
Question in Racy STYLE

Teachers Discuss an Interesting
Question in Racy Style.
At the Monday evenings session in
the primary department an exec lent
thesis was presented by Mrs. c. l..
Place, of st. Paul, on Natural Science
work in Common Schools" and it was
a discussion of this paper that occupied
the department yesterday afternoon.
Ihe participation i'll the discussion was
SO general that it voiced the fact that
there has been quickening of interest
IN this branch of public school work the
past decade. Teachers find it a fascin-
ating and pleasing duty and a relief
from the regime Of stern mathe MATES,
tor Illustration. They are apparently
entering upon new and important era
In educational science.
Prof. McReady, of this city. vOlun-
teered chapter from personal expert
ences III the school room. He recited
that i'll one instance he had found the
children absolutely unacquainted with
the technical nomenclature of botan-
lcal objects, but they soon exhibited
lively interest in the things around
them. One boy, having heard the pro-
lessor pronounce the Latin name of a
certain plant, asked why it is not as
easy to learn that name as the common
nomenclature, and. as an experiment.
Prof. McReady told him the name. The
boy eagerly memOr lied it and then he
began new system in botany. The
professor cautioned the teachers against
the too common error in loading down
the chlld'S mind. If he were a SUI
perintenGent he would not insist that
the teacher who cares nothing for bot
any herself. or who detested 1.-THE
would not REQUIRE that teacher to in
struct in botany. He would rather find
out some particular science more in har-
mOny with her tastes and aptitudes.
lie led his hearers through expert
ences in teaching natural history
in st. Paul. The children were
required to take object lessons,
and such lively interest was aroused
that he found TO his amaZement that
when the pupils had passed to higher
grades they were still thorough in the
things taught in the grade below. He
found they had preserved all their
notes and had followed up the expert
! ments and consequent deductions. He
had his pupils take objects home to
studp their innate qualities. as, for in
stance, fish. Each boy took a fish home
with him, and this principle was carried
| on up through the different grades of
the school as the pupil progressed to the
high school. He advised that success
III lnStructing in natural science de-
pended great deal upon superintend-
ents themselves, and the principals and
teachers.
Prof. Hubbard, of Waseca, felt that
the what and the how. as he styled if. is
the important thing to arrive at, and he
argued that it is the one thing that is
| too much neglected in the schools. The
teachers fail to teach how TO do to gam
the end. He referred incidentally to
the science work, started by a number
! or lrreprOachable young ladies, in teach
| ing the etTectS of narcotics and stimu-
lants-tenperance ana hygiene. He had
found the work sadly done, ana in some
| respects it amounts TO positive harm.
He pronounced the text books bad.
they are Smiths primer and the Path
finder series, and they are dry-"as dry
as dry can be"-and they weary the
child notwithstanding ANYTHING. He.
like the others, advocated the method
OF teaching by practical expert
ments, and recOunted an experience
| In first Introducing a frog under
microscope in a SchoOlroOm. There
the children saw with wonder the cir
| culatiOu of the blood in the web of the
frogs feet, and they saw little bodies
floating around in it. This had all been
nothing but vague dream to them be-
fore. but now it became real, and the
happy effects in stimulating a desire to
| progress in this line were graphically
portrayed.
Prof. Schoemaker, of Mortified, dis
| cussed the decided difference in the sub
| Jec;S taken up in the common schools.
iii regard to the faculties that are most
easily cultivated by ordinary means.
and he followed this with short talk
upon lnductive reason and observation.
LII cuitiyatlng the Imagination, he ar
| gued, all will follow the natural and
logical order, and he insisted that those
| things that would be useful and bene-
fetal i'll the schools in large city like
ST. Paul or Minneapolis would be actu-
ally harmful i'll the schools of smaller
cities and towns, and in district schools
In the cities the pupils have nine
months schooling each year for ten or
! fifteen years of their lives, and can fol-
| low up scientific studies sequentialIy:
but the opportunities are less in the
country. Concerning the problem of
developing the mind. the speaker OBJ
served that there is a great divergence
of opinion among teachers. One will
urge that language is the proper mode:
another science, while he believed in
mathematics.
Prof. Freeman maintained that the
schools are now doing the very things
that the participants in the debate were
urging. He said that what may seem
possibly confusing can be explained bv
saying the papers are presented in the
| physiological phase and they were dis
cuSSed in the practical. In primary
| departments, he insisted, the children
must have form, shape and color before
taking up the multltudinouS things and
objects around them. The only study
OF man is man, to use an old and popu-
lar idiom. You cannot study him alone
In his unity: you must study him in his
nature and his environments. Prof.
Freeman suggested that many teachers
only understand little of the science.
and the child cannot understand all.
81 ask, can he understand mathematics and
geometry said he. NO. Then Would Won
discontinue themg'
He proceeded to argue that all sci
ences are young compared with those
the humanltarlans used TO teach. and he
urged that the child is constantly assO-
ciated with natural objects, but when
the child is brought to things entirely
new to them, their ideas of them are
abstract.
Miss barrow, of st. Paul, testified to
the animate interest associated with
teaching natural science, and she
1IlOus III IulS d pIlludTy reason why IL
should be taught. She suggested that
people visiting summer resorts are met
with painful regrets when there is moth
ing else to claim their attention that the
great book OF nature was not spread out
before them in youth. She gave some
entertaining experiences in teaching
boys from the country She knew that
the men in the country have no thought
above getting the most money for their
wheat, and the women no thought
above butter making. While these are
very important factors in successful
farming, there should be a condition
above il. She asked the boys:
Now you have lived in the country, asso-
ciated with nature, L suppose you are ac-
Quainted with all the plants and flowers?
But they had never noticed them. When they
left the Agricultural COLLEGE hnWexar natr,-a