The Portland daily press., 1895-07-11
EVENING SESSION.

ocAiplc0. lilly 1oou anu perhaps SUUV
were present.
The afternoon had been delightful, and
the visitors had enjoyed it to the utmost
Large numbers attended the band con-
cert in the Oaks, and many took the va
rious excursions by steamer.
The pleasures of the day seem to have
put every body in good humor, and the
audience were in a disposition to enjoy
to the utmost the evenings programme.
The Temple Quartette appeared as soon
as President Stetson had made his an
nouncements, and the delighted audience
would not release them until they had
rendered three selections.
The first paper was on "The Response
of the Public School to the Demands of
the Public" by DR.. Samuel Thurber,
principal of the Girls High School, Bos-
ton Dr. Thurber said:
DIR. SAMUEL THURBER'S PAPER.
An American community of whatever
order, from nation to township, exerts
its will by means of votes in deliberat1ye
assemblies; that is, by means of politics;
and politics is pre- -eminently the business
dIltl bllS uuby Ol Ull6 luhCuioiA
among the very cleanest and the highest
which he has to fulfil. We must remem-
Der, we who serve the State in school
rooms, s,-that the ambition to serve the
State in legislative halls, is, or may be,
preeminently noble ambition. The civil
sin is to feel ones self above politics, and
to attribute, wrong motives indiscriml-
nately to all politicians Hence, l say, In
passing, that the American school is alb
soiutely imbedded in politics, and never
can Or should be taken out of politics. LII
you suggest that this immersion in poll
tics taints the school, insist, on the
other hand, that the constant presence OF
the school as az public interest, enobles
and eleyates the politics. ~
We have to note that the utmost the
State can do directly for education is to
provide the ways and means, and to lay
down in broad outline the scheme or
plan ON which institutions shall be con-
Quoted. Where the State, from the very
nature of the case, has to stop, the ac-
tivity of persons has to begin. If citizens,
represented in superintendents and teach
ers, did not meet the State in loyal devo-
tion to the spirit of the laws, we should
have no education. The laws mighJ be
implicitly and literally obeyed, and yet
the schools remain mere ghosts of schools,
useless, ridiculous. 1t is, as we know,
perfectly feasible to have excellent
tion Of the State. Existence under pub
lie law guarantees nothing except that
the schools shall exist and be supported
in one particular way rather than in an
other
No legislature that you are likely to
hear of makes a serious study of the art
of legislation but every teacher in these
days has to make a serious study of edu-
cation. We have learned to call it peda-
gogy,-this art with it's principles, sur
missed to be concealed somewhere in the
depths of anthropologic science. believe
the most discontented class of workers
today are the teachers; discontented, that
are not likely to strike-but with their
own achievements, their own methods,
with their own perception of ultimate
principles. Hence we see this recent out
burst of zeal for professional reading "a
zeal which is cruelty imposed upon by
the host of ever ready book makers and
which should by judicious advisers be
literature and guided into activities most
abounding in influences fitted to clear
the vision and refresh the soul
This phenomenal devotion to the study
of pedagogy, which we are now witness
ing, is one part of the response which the
public school is making to the public
demand. must not leave it without a
/ "
caution. The active study of speculative
pedagogy is pretty much confined, I be-
lieve, to superintendents, who do not
pass their days in the midst of monoto-
nous and exhausting tasks. We teachers
have no vitality to spare. Our work, if
we are much in earnest about it, con-
sumes us almost utterly. In the deluge
of pedagogical literature that the journals
bring to our notice we cannot choose
Let us not waste time in trying to
choose. If we have found a book of edu-
cational philosophy that really invigor-
ates our spirit and sheds light upon our
problems, let us hasten to proclaim it's
title to our friends But let us remain
impervious to the exhortations of the ad-
vertisements and the editorial notices.
Not one teacher in a hundred has any call
to yex himself over the psychology of
Herbart or to pretend to be profoundly
interested in experiments on the nerve
systems of frogs
To become more efficient servants of
the public we need such regimen. of
culture as shall enlarge our human sym
pathies by giving us broader views of life,
"a regimen of culture that shall bring us
to the foundations of spiritual power.
So that we may every freshly arm our
selves against torpid routine, and meet
our duties with radiance undimmed and
buoyancy unimpaired. What the public
stshe VI US lS, ufSb, uudu ouI personality
be wholesome, and, secondly, that our
knowledge and our executive force be
sufficient. knowledge is acquired and
becomes fixed possession, executive
sufficiency also is acquired under the ext
gencies of the trials of the situation.
Above all, 1 say to the teacher, become
a reader of English literature.
Let me prescribe as a perfect tonic for
minds conscious of the insidious access of
drowsy and benumbing routine, course
in Chaucer and Shakespeare, and then
yet another course in Wordsworth, Ten
nyson and Browning. =
Looking now at the changes which the
really responsive educational institutions
have made in order better to satisfy the
public demand, we find, as the most con-
spicuous of all. the various phases Of de-
velopment which group themselves under
what we know as the elective sys-
This is distinctively a response to a
public demand. The branches of knowl-
edge, the opportunities for culture, the
paths of the intellectual life which open
to a youth, are incalculably manifold
Obviously to educate multitude of
youth, all differing in aptitudes and
tastes, q multitude of subjects must be