The Portland daily press., 1894-11-24

any use-this keeping after school. AS
soon as it is a regular thing its value Is
destroyed. Its effect on the teacher
ought to be considered. That half hour
after school Is more of strain than the
rest of the day. He wanted to take eS-
captions to Mr.. Andrews's remedy Oh
keeping the pupils back. Is it altogether
the pupils fault that he is regularly Kepo
after school? Isn't it a reflection upon
the teacher herself when she hnds that
she must be kept after school very o1tens
After a recess of 20 minutes MISS
Sarah M. Taylor. principal OF tne train
ing school, read very able paper on
Language in the Primary Schools"
She said that today there is mo necessity
to give reasons for the study OF langu az
in our public school. The matter for
consideration is the method OF doing
ii. First YOU must lead the child to new
knowIedee for material for language
A fter that comes the ease, fuency and
taste in the use of it. 70 the child must
be impaired the power to thlnk-to rec
ognlze the meaning unoer WORDS. 10
deveIop the child's language power is
to develop the child in all possible di-
rections. Just so far as ne is able to
measure experience he will express It
in language. He must know and feel,
himself, before he can talk. Let the
language lesson exist primarily to pro-
mote this need of expression. There
must be live thought of the child to
demand expression before there can be
expression. After this is the time for
forming the habit of use of words.
Fluency of language comes not only
from talking much, but from talking
about those things which inspire enthu-
sasm-about which there is extensive
knowledge The reading OF the best
prose and poetry is a great help to the
child. although only observation can
Sargent, of the Chestnut street Kindergar-
ten read a paper in the Relation of the
Kindergarten to the Public Schools. /"
She devoted herself to an exposition OF
what the kindergarten is.
Hon. N. A. Luce, State superintendent OF
schools, spoke upon the subject OF
what Constitutes an Ideal School
Board" He described the function OF
the ideal school board as denoted blythe
laws OF the State. The ideal schoolboard
will be that one which shall be SO constl-
tuted as to secure in the most emcenJ
way the proper exercise of these func-
tions. First, such school board Will
be responsible to the people for results
yet will have an almost absolute lnde-
pendence in the use of methods 10 secure
those results. Theyiare not to be die
tated to as to how their work shall pc
done. A school board should he elected.
Appointed by central authority IL
would cease to be responsible ito the
people. 1t should be changeable in it's
personnel in order to best. secure the re-
sponsi bility to the people. Yet 1T should
be permanent in its policy. Methods Oh
school work are things of slow growth.
Therefore majority of the school board
should be experienced. Only minority
should be elected in one year. There
should not be an entire change in less
than three years. The board should be
organized today SO that its management
should be under business principles.
There should be snb-committees, made
up not only of the cultured school d1rec-
tive element, but OF the practical BUSH
ness element. Many a hurny-handed
farmers sound horse sense
will DO more to direct the local
school properly than any other
element.
Mr.. Luce at some length enumerated
these subcommittee and their func-
lions. In the large towns the meeting
of the soohol board should be monthly.
A record should be made of all impor-
tant action at these meetings. One defect
hitherto has been a lack of such COM
plete record. Finally the proper spirit
should be one of helpfulness. The
chosen teacher should be helped in all
possible ways. Such help must be crltl-
cal of course, but kindly critical, not
censorious. Such is the school board
that the law at present has in contem-
plation-a school board responsible yet
Independent, characterized by business
methods, critical, yet sympathetic and
kindly.
Mr.. sAndrews announced that there
were accommodations for ~ out of town
teachers.
Miss Rose Giles of the Shaylor school
was appointed secretary.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
The large audience re-assembled at 2
O'Clock. 1t is larger convention than
usual. At no time during last years
session at Brunswick was there more
than half the mum Der of this year.
One of the most interesting features of
the day was sample of "Class Exercise"
by Miss Eleanor n. Griffin of the train
ing school. She came onto the stage
with a dozen little tots and wrote SEN
ences on the blackboard which they read
rs called upon. one WrOle: see a
pretty plant The plant has root. The
plant has stem. The stem is green.
The stem is round. 1t has green leaves.
Sea the vein of the leaves. Some leaves
are long. Some leaves are short"
The above is sample of what she
wrote. AS each sentence was written
the little hands would wave strenuously
in the air and little Willie in particular
spoke up much louder and clearer than
some of those who read papers during
the day.
There were also lessons in pronouncing
words. The children were from four
to six years old and had only been at
school ten weeks. 1t was very pretty
and attractive as we'll as significant ex-
hibition of modern methods OF teaching.
MIR. George @. Aldrich superintendent
of schools at Newtonville, Mass, talked
with complete command of his subject
about: q How to develop reading in the
higher grades"