The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-01

s0lle lecture was repeated at night to
more than double that number.
Prof Loisette's pupils are bound by
their contract not to reveal the secrets of
the system. A MORNING News reporter,
VINO attended the morning lecture, found
Ine lesson very simple but instructive,
The whole idea is to improve the memory
oy strengthening the will power in COM
handing the attention of the mind to
%hatever subject it may have in hand.
Inc means adopted to this end are simple
but effective
In concluding his lecture Prof. Loisette
TOOK occasion to give some of mis- views
upon the subject of instruction generally.
he SAID that his intention was to devote
ms means TO the endowment of kinder
garten university, which should give a
complete education upon the kindergarten
plan.
u can take children from to 6 years"
SAID Prof. Loisette, land give them a
competent French nurse, who does
not understand a word of English.
L will let the French nurse have
entire charge of them for two hours a
Gay, and inside of two years they will be
chatterlng away in French as fuently as
In their mother tongue. OF course, they
would not.have an entire comprehension
OF the French language any more than
they would of the English language, but
mat would come with study in later years.
From o toe years 1 would teach them
German IN the same manner. After that
l would teach them Latin, as
that is the language upon
which the greater portion of the
scientific and cultured words of our Ian
guage is based. Greek and even Hebrew
might be taken up later on.
You may think have rather exalted
ideas of the possibilities of the kindergar-
ten system and so l have. have rea-
sons for it. The brain of the child in
early years has the natural inclination
for the acquiring of languages. This ten
dency, however, decreases with years,
and as maturity is reached it is almost
impossible for the ordinary
person to acquire another Ian
guage than his own perfectly.
We have the most abundant illustration
OF the truth of this statement. Are not
Latin and Greek taught in all our high
schools and colleges and yet where will
you find pupil who can construct an
ordinary sentence in Latin or Greek
without the aid of his lexicon? Nor can
he read half dozen sentences of some
passage which he has not studied before
hand without the same aid. Further
still, how many college professors who
teach the ancient languages daily, can
read them at sight or make any pretense
of doing so?
as it not plain that the great amount
of attention devoted to the ancient
languages in our schools is worse than
wasted as they are now taught2 Notwith-
standing that they are generally taught
everywhere, how often do you find a per-
son who will pretend to any familiarity
with them2 Hardly any but college
professors. can make claims to anything
OF the kind, and they only because their
business requires them to be
constantly going over and over
again the same passage. Let
one of them take an unfamiliar work
in one of the dead languages and see if
he can read 1T without the aid of a lexi-
con.
The whole trouble is because our
teaching is from an unscientifc stand
point and contrary to the laws of psy-
chology. We take the mind when it has
already passed the proper stage for ac-
quiring these things and attempt to drill
into 1t by rote what it is little disposed
to learn. The result is that what is
learned is learned by rote and is forgot
ten as soon as the books are
put away We should never
accomplish anything in the way Of gen.
eral acquaintance with the modern and
ancient languages until they are taught
upon an entirely different basis"
Prof, Loisette declared that the kinder
garten idea is the coming one and that it
will prevail universally in the public
schools within few years.