Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-01-02

Milwaukee, Dec. 27.-The annual
meeting of the Wisconsin teachers as
ISOLATION began yesterday. The at
tendance is large. Nothing has yet
been formally said or done in refer
ence to Mr.. Pederson's charges against
Charles Kendall Adams, president Of
the university. Mr.. Adams delivered
the following address at the afternoon
session:
The topic on which I have been in
yited to present a paper this afternoon
suggests delightful possibilities of en-
tertaining discussions in various di-
rections. 1t opens vistas into the uni
versity and into the preparatory
schools. For example, [ might take
you to the university and regale you
with the contemplation of it's magni-
tude and it's eXtravagances. 1t would
be easy to show you how a wicked and
thOughtless Legislature last winter.
egged on by the still more wicked and
eXtraVagant regents and pre- Hdent of
the university came to the conclusion
that the three hundred and more
young women who still persist in COM
ing to drink at that fount of knowl-
edge, should be accommodated with
something better than that kind of
Siberian prison euphemistically termed
Ladies' hall. Ii once started in this
direction, | should also have to point
out how this same unworthy body of
men came to the conclusion that the
University hall, which has worthily
performed it's duties for forty years,
was not thought to be up to the ex-
travagant standards of modern aca-
demic requirements. In short, they be-
lieved that floors worn through ought
to be replaced with new ones; that
blackboards ought not to be so varie~
gated in color by the taking off of
the original material DIS to leave any
reasonable doubt whether they were
intended for chalk or for charcoal;
that ceilings with the weekly habit of
falling, ought to be put into at least
a provisional state of peTmanence; that
corridors CONSTRUCTED by doorways less
than four feet wide were not quite ade-
quate for crowds Of nine hundred men
and women changing classes every
hour, and that the liability of this re-
spectacle crowd Of men and women
in case of a panic, being plunged down
three or four stories in one indiscrim-
mate mass, ought not to be any longer
encouraged. 1t would be interesting
to trace these and other idiosyncracies
of extravaganza in case t ere was the
proper time or occasion.
Or we might take d voyage of dis
cOVery into the preparatory schools
We might examine the courses, and
at once get into a lively jangIe as to
whether this or that study ought to be
encouraged or excluded; ard as to
whether the boy in Germany at four
teen is as we'll prepared for college as
the boy in America at seventeen. Such
an excursion would certainly have it's
picturesque incidents. We should find,
for instance, that this association is
not monopolizing spelling reform. In
decd we should lear1 that efforts in
that direction are by no means con-
fined to these photographic economies
OF which our worthy president has set
us so good an example. We should
probably discover an ingenuity as well
as picturesqueness in this expert
mental photography which might be
worthy of our attention. This versa
tility in the art Of spelling seems to
include what Lowell as we'll as Vol
taire regarded as "a certain wholesome
respect for superfuties;" for 1 have
the evidence of set of papers recently
left at my Office that q very respectable
minority of the students still think
that the word Professor should carry
the burden of a superfious e.
We should also find interesting at
tempts at reform in grammar Not
long since young lady came to my
office for admission to the university,
having graduated as she declared, at
q school which shall be nameless. 1t
was at once evident that she had been
heroically engaged in the movement
for grammatical reform; for in her
strenuous endeavors to avoid the vio-
lence sc often done 20 the innocent
participle of the verb to do, she de-
clared L have did algebra and ge-
ometry," as well as a great many other
things. It was the prevalence of in
genious reforms OF this kind that led
Cornell university TO decide that while
in general it approved of the diploma
system, hereafter no diploma would
exempt a student from examination in
English, and that no student conspic-
uously deficient in English should be
admitted to any department of the
university. If we should carry our eX-
cursion too far we might perhaps rec
Cmmend an extension of that rule
But all such considerations of the in
herent conditions of the university and
the preparatory schools are here out OF
place. At the end of the Astounding in
tellectual banquet of which we have
just partaken, what is needed is not
another elaborate course, but simply
something to perform the function of a
cup of coffee, or smoke, or perhaps
a nap. What l really have to say per
tains strictly TO the relations of the
university to the preparatory schools
It viii doubtless prove sufficiently So
porific even for this hour.
l regard it as a great piece of 5000
fortune to the educational interests OF
the state that what may be called Off
clal or organic relations were establish.
ed some years ago between the univer.
sity and so many of the high schools
TN,