The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-02-17


preparation for the various vocations
where skill and more or less manual
labor are required. To meet these de-
mands in certain lines, special schools
have been established in different parts
of the country, chiefly in large cities,
called technical institutes. But as
these schools are at the present time
limited in number aud more or less ex-
pensive, comparatively few young
men and women can attend hem.
The mass must be deprived of this
special training unless provision can
be made to give it to them through the
public school course. But already this
source of instruction is overcrowded
with too many studies, competitive ex-
aminations and parrot-like reciations.
But is it necessary to adhere to our
present forcing system, which overloads
the memory and clouds the intellect,
instead of enlightening it and BRINGING
out its latent powers? 1t is alike ruin
Gus to health, ambition aud future
physical and mental activity. The
pupil who is deficient in verbal memory,
no matter how bright and quick in per-
ception and Judgment, is voted the dull
scholar. If the scholars get anything
tai and tangible, which every young
mind Graves, it is through the discern
ment and judgment of the teacher and
not through the system of education
followed. A few minds may be strong
enough to overleap or break down all
barriers and educate themselves, but
the mass are left weary and discouraged,
If not broken down, by the wayside of
| life. Our children need to be taught
more of the actualities bv which they
are surrounded and of the practical
duties of life which are before them.
Textbooks are well enough as refer
ences and guides, but the scholar needs
to be brought more in contact with the
active everyday life outside Of the text.
books. No systematic effort has been
made to introduce industrial education
that shall mentally and physically equip
the scholar for the discharge of the
duties of life on the stage of activity to
which he is introduced. All legisla-
ton runs in the old ruts, and, while
many take little interest in the matter,
the few are too self opinionated and
governed by a too strong desire to be
considered infalible, to admit the
errors of the present educational sys
tenn and seek to introduce a new one
or even to adapt or modify the old so
as to meet the practical demands of the
age. We need system that is object
i've and appeals to the eye, that brings
the hand and touch into play, and
through the senses calls the mental
faculties into activity. Let the teacher
take a stone, plant, flower, kernel
of corn or wheat, or of any other grain,
an acorn, tiny tree or any one of num-
berless other objects of nature, and
tell the children how the soil was first
formed from rock, how plants grow
from that soil, how they blossom,
how the seeds are formed, how they
rpen and what their uses are, to
gether with other interesting facts
which are of absorbing interest and
continually before the eyes of our chill
dren, but of which they scarcely have a
thought. The nature, meaning and
uses of the common objects of nature
need to be taught their opening minds
The works of God are fair for naught,
Unless our eyes, in seeing,
See hidden in the thing the thought
That animates its being.
The speaker related an instance
where an intelligent lady instructor
ventured to go outside the textbooks
and even the school room to cal the at
tention of the little inquirng minds to
the rudiments of geology, botany, en-
tomology, ornithology, etc., with most
wonderful success. The book lessons
were better learned and understood, and
even the parents got interested and re-
ceived instruction. 1t is natural for the
minds of young and old to be interested
in the facts of nature and to feel de-
sire to understand them. Children de.
light to play at farming, and can in a
miniature way be taught by object les
son nearly every operation of farm life
and domestic economy. Everything in
natural history has fascination for the
young and growing mind, and that mind
ought not to be allowed to hunger and
stagnate for the want of some one tc
unlock and explain the mysteries OF
nature, and call its attention to her man.
fold beauties and charms. There is g
growing dissatisfaction with the pres
ent system of education. One distin.
guished educator says: 81 have known
very few men who were made into any
thing entirely great by their education
and | have known a good many who
were entirely ruined by it, and were
finally turned out as pedants, prigs OF
idiots. II is coming to be realized more
/ and more that the whole man must be
trained. There must be balance in
his powers. He must feel as well a,
know, and act as we'll as feel" The
speaker quoted from recent report OF
the Boston school board: cit is, after
all, not altogether what our children
learn, but the habits they form and the
noble purposes awakened, that give tC
our schools their greatest value. Man
3 ual training quickens the perceptivt
faculties, while at the same time i
+ trains the eye and is invaluable to th,
earnest work of life right at hand. That
is the broadcast, truest education tina
f trains the hands, the eye and the mind
for, while it is the mind that plans ant
the eye that guides and directs, in tn,
industrial world, it is always the hand
that executes" The need of the hou
isqualiied teachers to give our children
i this practical instruction These mus