The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-10-03
JUST p CHAT.
lBy w. e. Christian.l

the children. in this way, what
technical schools are doing for youths.
Miss Blow, of Chicago, is probably the
greatest authority and enthusiast i'll this
country on the subject of Kindergartens.
I had the honor of meeting her once in
the drawing-room of the Greenbrier
White Sulphur Springs. In the midst
of all that fashionable company that
were delighting one another In tete-a-
tetes, she. standing, became the centre
of il larger and larger group until one
could scarcely hear what she said-and
all about kindergartens and the bear
ing of such training upon the right-doing
of men and women. Although she was
not comely as women go, one lost sight
of this in the masterful glow of her face
and the brilliancy and sweep and hui
maneness and altruism of her aims and
conceptions. Such rudiments treated as
she treated them point toward what Joa-
quin Miller called the Larger College"
and education becomes at once heart
filling science, and not mere peddl:ng
to boys OF greek roots that have been
bought by the teacher at so much mon
ey per session. / believe DIR. MclveE as
well as Prof. Toms, is filled with this
quality that gauges education in its re-
lation to life as opposed to almost exclu-
sive relation to learning. BY the bye,
do we take time to consider the educat-
ing effect upon the Judgment of the bicy-
Gle? 1t is one OF the useful playthings
in the larger kindergarten. See on
crowded Pennsylvania Avenue, a boy of
ten threading his away between people,
and cable-cars, carriages and what not.
Thirty years ago a boy of ten might
no oil IN Y J.
vania Avenue without his nurse. But
this boys Judgment is prompt, accurate
and safe. A problem confronts him al
most every second, and he solves it with
a vehicle that is more nearly at one
with the human will than most things
we have to do with.
Speaking of Prof. Toms, little while
ago, reminds me of "Pedagogics."
had never heard of ''Pedagogics," TO be
impressed, until came to this State
l thought when they told me it was n
the University, it was a new game like
/, Golf or something, and that one had ia
wear knee-breeches and calf-compelling
socks to play it. The dictionary says
"Pedagogics" means to lead the feet
hear later that it means to teach how
to teach. / have never seen it working
l should like to see it working, because [
| think it must have virtue to take its
| place in the University under DR.. Al
| derman. Somebody said when / dared
| to he curious about this new thing,
why, if they teach doctors to kill and
| lawyers to lose cases, should they, not
| also, teach teachers to teach?" This
| argument cannot be adequately answer
ed and, therefore, i cry peccavi! ina
J CINE it has to do with the spirit OF teach
ing-that spirit which is breathed into
/ the pupil.
This spirit of teaching! | emphasize
spirit" because there seemed the other
day to be much of this notion in DR..
| Alderman's mind during the closing sen
fences of his address Of welcome to the
| incoming students. A North Carolina
mother read them and said she wished
every mother in the State would write ia
DR.. Alderman and thank him for them
She did not like to do so personally, but
asked me would | do so even in some
such desultory fashion az this. He
spake fine words-not that too much
store should be set upon words the mere
putting together Of which any skilled
cultured genuine, painstaking artist In
English could do-as DIR. Alderman
knows-but the spirit" of freedom was
in them pressing forward toward sweet
ness and light" / could but recall lin,
from an Oxford or Cambridge prize es
say that / saw in a newspaper som,
years ago. "No liberty is theirs, who
with bodies free, still are slaves in soul.
That is not a bad motto for any Uni
versity.
| 10 ;r;4
seems to me, which gives atmosphere
to the great places of learning in the ole
world and even to Yale and some Ameri
spirit about Oxford in Froude's
| splendid panorama of epic days
this after all may be the great battle
picture Of the world, to those who
reckon the Reformation rightly.
The University is fast taking in this
spirit, it does seem to me a bare locker
on. 1t cropped out in the stand OF
alumni for State aid despite their polti.
cal leanings: one could see it in the
mental lift" which University men
generally had during the recent struggle
toward the betterment of the nnblic
schools. l instance DIR. McIver. because
of his heroic fight, as a type of those
| University men who raised their foeas
u
up and filled the nostrils with that bra We
upper air which men breathe when thew
are at their best.
But speaking further of DIR. Alder.
mans expressions, no doubt all noted
their exquisite structure. The aroma OF
the Greek men and de was yet about
them. How rarely sentences come now
duly favored with connectives. When
they do come SO. one knows a scholar is
talking. These connectives! Do not
pooh-pooh them! They are the salt OF
sentences. The men and the de are the
end of the arc along which n greek sen
tence swings like n pendulum: or this
they tick silently in a page of Demos
themes like little French clock. They
are more than a seasoning for n SEN
tence-these dums and Gums, and ergos
and itaques, and enims and CARS and
hooray for kai gar and ALA Kai and also
Kai de Kai! They are like the rec
tonpu1ar ADDING that n StOnp-m0S son upvpr