Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-12-09

skepticism among the people. tits per-
fectly proper for the state to pay PEN
sion to those teachers who have spent
all the best years of their life in train
ing its children because it is directly
to the interest of the state to have its
citizens educated.
Superintendent Roop, of Salina, read
a paper on Compulsory Education. He
said it is now dead letter and not a
success-statIstics show this. 1t par
takes too much of that spirit which
would make every child alike. We
are tending too much to uniformity. 1t
is not well to cramp pupils too much
into a uniform course but each should
be allowed TO develop his individuality
to great extent, but of course under
certain restrictions. The products of
nature all around us are so varied and
various that they teach us that uni
formity is against nature. Prof. White,
of Kingman, in the discussion of the
same subject, SAID that the child is not
the property of the state to the extent
which we are sometimes told he is.
Compulsion is opposed to the true spir-
it of education. You may compel a
boy TO attend school but you cannot
force him to learn.
HINTS ON TEACHING GRAMMAR.
Very frequently the pupil is set to
work in text book on grammar, with
out having been prepared for it, and
long before he is ready for technical
grammar. Every pupil should have a
thorough drill in language lessons be-
fore he begins the study of the text
for him to understand the most difficult
parts and should be taught only the
easier. find that great many, who
have graduated in the common schools,
are scarcely able to take up the difficult
parts of grammar. English grammar
does not deal with infection as Latin
and Greek, because the English Ian
guage is not infected. If there is such
thing as English grammar, it must
deal with the sentence, the uses and re
latIOns that the words have in the SEN
tence. A word may be noun in one
sentence and a verb i'll the next; as, the
whips were broken; he whips the horse.
The word AS may be used as an adyerb,
adjective, proposition, conjunction,
pronoun and expletive, depending upon
the Office 1t performs in the sentence in
which 1t is used. Let me give exam
plies of these different uses. AS an ad-
verb of time-he trembled AS he spoke.
An adjective in the predicate with a
cOpulative Verb,-AS is the teacher sc
will be the school. A proposition
certain animals are used AS food. A
conjunction,-the relations are so un-
certain AS they require great deal OF
eXaminatiOn.-Bacon A pronoun,-
As many AS heard him believed. An ex-
pletive.-he was regarded AS lntelli
gent. This clearly illustrates the fact
that the meaning of sentence must be
known before an intelligent disposition
can be made of 1T. Can the average
girl or boy between the ages of 10 anC
ly? 1t requires mature mind to make
such distinctions. This is, however
the only true way to study grammar
and the sooner the pupils can be led t
see that words must be disposed of &C
cording to the Office they perform il
the sentence under consideration, tn,
better 1t will be for them. l find tina
some students think that if a verb il
transitiYe in one case it is transitive il
all. What caused them to have sucl
an idea? There must be flaw In tn,
instructions given to them. Step
should be taken to prevent such idea
by first giving them easy distinction
and gradually leading them to see tn
more difficult. When this is attalnet
the study of grammar will be pleasan
to the student.-H. c. Deist, Teache
IN Harper Normal School.