Morning journal and courier., 1892-05-23
TWO HUNDRED TEACHERS

Attend the Council Of EducatiOn-
 Some Pointed Talk by President
 Eliot ofHarvard-Pr1ncipA Tn ma
 of This City one of the Speakers.
 HARTFORD, May 21.-The supreme court chamber in the capitol was filled this morn ing when at 10 o'clock Secretary Hine of the state board of education called to order the meeting of the Connecticut Council of Education. There were present about two hundred teachers, high school and normal school principals and distinguished guests, including President Eliot of Harvard uni versity, President Smith and Professor Pynchon of Trinity.
 The discussion of the question of the morning, "The Relation of the Grammar Schools to the High Schools" was opened by Professor A. B. Merrill, principal of the normal school at Willimantic. The great thing is not to have pupils answer questions but to have them devoted to @ purpose. The work now Is done more with @ view of what is coming than of what is being done.
 Haven high school. said that the high school stood between the grammar school and the col lege. Both" he said. ''sIe crowding the high should be no relation between tho three, but am interested in the question of what tho relation is to be-" In New Haven he said, the high school receives one-eighth of the pupils who enter the grammar schools, land of the one-eighth sends only one-qusrter to college. Yet the whole cur l college, This is a great wrong, he believed. Principal Charles L.. Ames of the Brown school of the free high school. He gave figures to show that the great majority of children who pass through tie grammar school do not enter President Eliot of Harvard was the next speak CT. "The course of education should be @ com who stops anywhere, at the end of any month or any year should have an education complete SO
 it s @ 5o bs at sae | of the necessary things in education. Fear of pain is not general motive" he said. "I am not been an efectual motive in this life." This sally caused general laugh, but Dr Eliot did not smile.
 Achievement, he said, was the real motive, the live thing which should be had in view. Of arithmetic Dr. Eliot said that he did not be- lisve arithmetic demanded more concentration of attention than any other study ''Can any. body read with adequate expression or write . % tentions can't. Indeed, often find that can not make myself so clear as not to be misquoted" :" roar of laughter and applause greeted this sug-
 Speaking of the practical use of arithmetic Dr. Eliot illustrated with the case of a woman the s KnsoWedge 5 of arihmetie played, % ,as compared with judgment of color, material and the moral aspects of the transaction. The uses of higher arithmetic he argued, ,are insignificant compared with many other kinds of Knowledge used in actual life.
 He had felt abused and cheated when at six teen years of age he had discovered how much more easily many very difficult problems could be solved by algebra than by arithmetic. s.And believe was justified" said Dr. Eliot.
 Geography came in next for the distinguished speakers attention. He believed that geogra- phy, as 1t is taught, with its useless details speedily to be forgotten, is . useless waste of time. "There Is . delightful geography" he said; "let us teach It. Let.us teach geography by telling how the land comes to have the shape 1t has; it's conformation, its undulations; how bays and harbors come to have their shape, the prac- tical things as to the heights and depths which give character to the earth on which we live"
 Physics, chemistry, all these things the speaker urged should be taught by the 1abora- tory method.
 The teachers profession would be greatly changed and elevated by such a revolution as this 'The procession is already on the march," said Dr. Eliot, .'and the next five years will bring about a great change in the methods and spirit Of American education'
 Dr. Eliot sat down amid tremendous and long continued apDlauSo