Los Angeles herald., 1891-05-24
E.CHILDREN'S POET
Third Grade School Children
Discuss Longfellow.
Impromptu Compositions at
Thirtieth-street School.
Pleasant Ways of Teaching Children
Practical Lessons.
Mrs. Vests Glass of 9-Year-Olds Enter
tain the Berald School Reporter.
New Methods.


A German writer has said that child
rem between the years of and IL are
more like young animals than at any
other time in their lives. That is the
kind Of children over which Mrs. Lizzie
A. West, the third grade teacher of
the Thirtieth-street school, exercises su-
pervision.
Mental arithmetic, with its hard
problems and necessity for speed, used
to be the most disagreeable OF studies to
the present generation, when they were
children, but it has lost some of its ter
rors. There were no oral answers to
the problems that were slowly and dis
tinctly given out to the children under
Mrs. West. Each child had slip Of
paper upon which it's name was written,
and as problem was solved the answer
was written on the slip, numbered, and
when all were written the slips were
collected and the teacher probably spent
some of her stay-at-home hours In cor
recting and marking the slips.
A lesson in written arithmetic came
next, with about dozen of the boys
at the blackboard, the Others working
on paper and states at their desks.
Human nature is ever the same if
methods of teaching have changed, for
there were the same sly looks of one boy
at anotherss work to see if his answer
was right, and the same slow boys who
had to have a minute or two longer
thar others to finish their work. There
was, however, an absence of positive
dishonesty, for there were no copied
answers, and if little lad found that
his answer differed from his neighbours,
there was puzzled look, but no alter
ations made. There was no counting Of
fingers, either, to obtain result, the
work being carried on mentally or upon
the board before the scholar. A lesson
in spelling came in with the arithmetic
in the shape of such words as "minu-
end, "subtrahend, I" remainder" etc.,
which were all correctly written and
properly used.
Arithmetic over, and there was an OBJ
servation and language lesson. The
class had previously had lesson ON
spiders, and had been told to see what
they could learn about them. Asked
who knew anything new upon the sub
iect, a score of hands were instantly
raised, and little fellow being selected,
spoke up in an animated way telling
how the wind spider goes to work to set
up housekeeping. Other scholars gave
further facts In the spiders family his
tory. Now fresh supply of paper was
given out, and words were given which
were to be introduced into sentences.
1t was noticeable that the sentences
written were nearly all natural ones,
such as the child might use in conver-
sation, and also that they were all cor
rectly constructed, revealing the re-
suits of previous good training. A few
questions evidenced the fact that the
children understood every word they
used. Penmanship, grammar, orthog-
raphy, observation, quickness of thought
and correct position at the desk were
all taught at the same time. The
teacher had way of correct
ing, an awkward position at the
desk by drawing funny little diagrams
on the board, then calling the child's
attention to it, when, with laugh, the
position was corrected and work went
on. A sentence was required naming
some kind of plant that cloth is made
from. Flax was chosen, and
gave rise to little conversational talk
about the plant. A box in which flax
seed was growing was produced
from window-sill, and little girl
brought it shyly forward for the inspec-
tion of the reporter. Hemp was another
plant spoken of, and box of hemp-seed
shoots was produced. Cotton was men
toned, and a box full of baby cotton
plants came to light. A sort of air Of
proprietorship pervaded the conduct of
the children during this lesson, for they
had witnessed the planting OF all the
seeds, and had watched for the appear
ance of the first shoots of green, so that
they felt that they knew what they were
talking about.
Now came short lesson in penman-
ship. As the children had never used
pen and ink before entering upon the
third grade, the chirography was
something remarkable, to say the
least, but there was evidence of
careful attention to the copy. The chill
dren all dropped into easy positions
with a degree of uniformity, but no
stiffness about them, and the teacher
took care to relieve the little ones by
frequent change of position of the
hands and bodies for a few seconds.
The writing lesson over and the gong
sounded for recess, sending the children
out to fifteen minutes of riotous play.
Back again in their seats, reading
lesson was taken up, the scholars choos-
ing the lesson for themselves, and the
hard words being discussed by the.
whole class as the lesson progressed.
Books away, and the children recited
in concert one of the beautiful poems of
Longfellow, the poet whom all can un-
derstand. They chose their own poem,
and recited it beautifully, and with
more expression than concerted reciting
usually displays. A few questions re-
vealed the fact that the children were
we'll acquainted with the poets history
and work, and could tell the names and
give little sketch of the principal
POEMS, where they could not
recite them entire. New sheets of paper
were distributed and the children told
to write something about the poet.
Some OF them merely wrote the names
Of his poems; some made an attempt at
biography and brought in few lines
from his poems. Here are three Of
these efforts:
Ma