The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1893-01-07
The Teaching Sex.

Inc AoAcntn2 Sex.
OF women college graduates it is safe
to say that more than half of those who
enter breadwinning occupations after
leaving school engagein teaching. Even
the ladies who obtain medical diplomas
very often teach in some woman's col
lege or high school in aseference to prac-
ticing their profession Women gradu
ates Of art schools and of schools of
oratory, acting and music oftener become
teachers than public professionals. AS
superintendent of girls gymnasiums
numbers of women physicians are find
ing employment
So generally does the feminine sex
drift into teaching that General Francis
Walker, who recognizes the tendency.
advises that there should be special
pedagogic course established in colleges
attended by women. 1t would be well
to have such a course in all colleges, in
truth, for both sexes. But as the teach
ing profession is falling more and more
into the hands of women, General
Walker thinks their colleges should take
the initiative in the matter.
He would have the students in such
normal course practice especially the
art of putting questions to the pupil in
such way as to stimulate thought.
This one art, putting questions that
stimulate the child's thought, he would
have studied and practiced, practiced
and studied, year by year" until the
teacher who is to be comprehends per-
fectly that her work is not stufing
child's memory as poultry is stuffed for
roasting, but it is. on the contrary, de-
veloping the child's mind as sunshine
and shower develop a perfect flower.
He would have the normal pupils take
turns frequently in playing school and
practicing the art by which they will
earn their living.
The demand for thoroughly trained
teachers is everywhere greater than the
supply, and graduates of physical cul-
ture courses especially have good places
engaged for them often before they
leave school. General Walker writes in
The Educational Review:
| would not have the colleges for women
teach the mere arts of the pedagogue, which
may without offense be called the knacks Of the
trade, or undertake to anticipate the necessary
work Of experience But / would have the
history and philosophy of education made
prime subjects of study | would have the
psychology Of teaching taught. / would have
the mind, in its powers of perception observa-
ton, reflection and expression, studied as OBJ
jectively and as scientifically as specimens in
natural history are studied in the classroom
and the laboratory.
The order of development of the human fac
ulties, the child way of observing, the child's
way of thinking when untaught and unframed,
the ways in which the child may be interested
and drawn out of himself-these should be the
matter of eager, interested investigation.
Surely they are as well worthy to be the sub
jects of study as are the processes of vegetable
or animal growth, as the order in which the
leaves are set upon the stem or as the mechan-
ism of the human body.
would have small classes formed to investi-
gate problems in education, starting questions,
starting propositions, adducing facts, discuss
ing principles, consulting authorities, answer
ing objections, under the guidance of teachers
who should have theirown minds directed upon
the end of training their scholars-not merely
TO communicate thought, but to create it.