Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-28
TEXAS TEACHERS.
The Recent Meeting at Austin a
Pronounced Success.
EARNEST, INTELLIGENT WORK.
Before Many Years Texas VIII Not be
Second to any State in the Union
in Point of Her Schools Snd
Her Teachers.
Special to the Gazette.

Special to the Gazette.
.A6rIN, TEX, June 27.-The state Teach
= association just held at Austin was a
pronounced success all around, in the judg-
ment Of some of the principal educators
who have been attending such meetings for
dozen years. In some respects they claim
that it has surpassed any previous meeting.
1t may not have exceeded in numbers the
meeting held at Galveston year ago, but
the daily attendance at the sessions was
larger. Many, it is said, who We're not
teachers went to Galveston because OF the
low rates of transportation, and for the
pleasure of bathing in the gulf; and many
of the teachers spent hours in the surf that
were stolen from their duty in the teachers
meeting. 1t was not so here. The hall OF
representatives was crowded at each ses-
sion, not by a istless, careless audience,
but by lot of earnest and intelligent teach
ers, male and female. The hot weather APP
peared to have no effect in dampening their
ardor-whatever may be said Of collars.
They stood it bravely, terrible as it was at
times, and did not shrink in fortitude even,
when dull and prosaic essayist had the
floor. To tell, the truth, however, there
was not a great deal of the dry-aS-duSt, OF
the pedantic and the prosy about
the exercises. To the average mortal not
up in pedagogics, some things doubtless
may have seemed so, but not to the teachers
buCllloClNCS Ihcy uliuCTSlOOu duu dppiC-
ciated what others turned up their noses at.
While their papers and discussions were to
the average layman what classical music is
to the uninitiated, they had often the flavor
of old wine to the pedagogues themselves.
There is nothing stranger in this than in
the fact that those trained in the mysteries
of thorough bass" should come together
to talk and make music of sort that is said
to be far better than it sounds. IT'S even
so with the pedagogue or the schoolmarm.
Their discussion of educational topics, text
books and methods may not sound well or
inviting to others. They are not meant
like music for the general ear, but for their
own, and that is where they have the edge
on the music makers. The association is
composed in the main of the brains of the
profession. Most of the trained and cult
ured teachers, male and female, of the state
belong to it. The principal county and city
superintendent are in it. The presidents
and professors of our colleges, academies
and high schools belong to it, and also the
best and most ambitious of the teachers in
the public schools.
One thing that struck the beholder and
him who listened attentively to tile various
talks and discussions held, was the growing
spirit of self-assertion, even independence
that was constantly, and perhaps uncon-
sciously, manifesting itself. The teachers
spoke of their rights occasionally, and of
the dignity and responsibilities of their call
ing. They were evidently strongly i'm
pressed with full sense of each, and of the
respect to which they were entitled there
for. One of them declared that the teach
ers were considered good and trustworthy
enough to be instructed with the important
charge of training the minds of the young,
of planting in them the seeds of correct
knowledge and right conduct, and Of fitting
them to be credit to themselves and an
honor to their parents and their country;
but-and the speakers face showed some
shade of disgust at the thought-but they
that is the teachers-were not considered
good enough to advise legislature con-
corning the needs and requirements Of our
public schools. Because they did not raise
Ear voices in clamor for textbook bill,
they were not to be trusted. Because they
were said to be unfriendly to it, they were
venal and the paid emissaries of book con-
Germs. 1t was strange, was it not, that men
who considered them venal, selfish and
purchasable, would intrust them with the
education of their childrens
Other expressions of sarcastic or ironi-
cal nature proved that some of them at
least, had it in for the legislature, or the
g6i6ns that cast slurs on them at the late
session. They felt pretty strongly when