The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1892-08-18
A Writer in the Rural New
Yorker Advocates a New
Method
For the Conducting Of
Country schools.

hN NVNhW oNHDVt - - >----~
great value in the national problem.
"How shall we improve it2" In
answer to this question may lsuggest:
l. Is not the intensity of American
business life too much carried into |
the primary schools, drawing too |
heavily upon the nervous force of
American childhood2
2. Will not better and more lasting |
results be attained by ''making
haste more slowly"
8. May not fewer hours in the
school room, supplemented by out
door and industrial teaching be better
for the child physically as well as
mentally, and as preparation for
active life?
4. Can not the country child, while
attending the district school, become
so well acquainted with, and made so
to delight in, the pursuits Of
agriculture and horticulture, be led
so gently and pleasantly into such an
intimate acquaintance with, and love
of nature, as often to determine the
tread of later life in the direction of
rural pursuits, or of scientific
inquiry?
5. Will not all this uplift rural life
to a higher plane2
Well, how? Perhaps l cannot tell
you. The plan will certainly re-
quire different teachers, to some
extent, or at least teachers better in
formed in some directions. Possibly
almost any bright girl Of II tolerably
well instructed in the usual common
school studies, may satisfactorily
teach the rudiments of arithmetic,
geography and grammar; but to take
school of 80 or 40 children oi
various grades of mental capacity
and train them into accurate observers
close thinkers and good reasoner
with reference to the common thing
of their lives and tlreir surroundings
is quite different matter, and need
more thoughtful and better-rea'
; teachers than many found in on
: country schools. In no school
needed teachers of better grade 0
intellect than in the primary, an
perhaps in 40 school can better us
be made of a broad scientific an
literary culture.
e 1t would seem as if a part of tn
+ time usually devoted to arithmetic
e grammar and geography, useful 8
e these branches are, might be bette
e employed.
a WIN should bright child requil
II half a dozen years to master thes
!, branches sufficiently for all usu
al practical uses? Suppose we tai
N one of these branches at time; al
" concentrate study upon it. Shou
not one hour daily, under a cor
Or petent teacher, give an intellige
P, boy or girl of II or IA, as good
knowledge Of either of these branch
III as is usually had in all the yea
k spent in the common school? If nc
u. why not?
n. Let there be no more than four
Il. summer, and no more than thr
tz hours of indoor school work, al
but one hour at time. Allow 0
of these main studies an hours wor
IS, then reading, and reading to undo
on stand; writing-and as soon
nd possible writing to express ides
as drawing and spelling; and after tt
of oral lectures by the teacher on a
DIS topic, scientific, literary or historic
he that may be thought advisable Af'
dy that let all go out-of-doors. Ma
cir each school an experiment station
ne agriculture and horticulture.
ey Let the teacher conduct expedite
1t. to neighboring farms, to the fie
an and the woods. Let the childl
WIS learn how crops are grown and "
slk so grown; what obstacles meet
wo farmer, the fruit grower, and
ill gardener, and how they may
all surmounted. Teach them of the s.
cir the plant. Let each child cond
up experiments of his own. Make
s." part of the school grounds gard