The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-07-14

| Education Is heartily IeceINeu ~!
| teachers. Its policy to build up every
educational interest of the State VIII
| make it very popular journal.
| The University is receiving INQUIRIES
as TO the admission of women. There Is
| no reason why the women OF our State
with strong minds should not avail them
selves of the University classes. The
DEPARTMENT of teachers Latin. under
Prof. MCLAUGHLIN, of Wadesboro, is
highly appreciated. His course means
that there will be better Latin work in
many North Carolina schools next year.
The advanced Latin classes are Taught
nv DIR. Linscott. of the University fac
ulty.
ON Monday morning the grand old
man with all the strength and progress
of youth. Supt. Graham, of Charlotte.
smoke on the true spirit and method III
history. He read from the News and OBJ
server of the Doth ult the proposition
of the Wisconsin G.. \. II. TO have
history of the civil war written by
prominent educators from the North and
South. Mr.. Graham insisted that this
movement WAS in the right direction, III
the path of truth and justice, and was
the only true spirit in which to study
history. lis truth alone that Is
strong" We failed he said, to teach our
history for fear of being accused OF
prejudice and hate in our teaching. lie
thought that the country was getting
down to the level that we can write his
tory. We neglected to know and write
our history. Lyman Draper. of Wiscon-
sin. kad written books on the battle of
Kings Mountain and the Mecblenburg
Declaration. and from these books we
learned most about the revolutionary
history of our State. We must study
both sides. Teach the truth.
The interest in nature work IN the unl-
versity has been unusually great. The
advanced class in geology with Prof.
Collier Cobb has made study of the old
volcanoes, the sandstones, the Deep
River coal field, the WadeSboro sand
stones and Bogan's cut, and the Monroe
states. This work began Immediately
after the close of the college term, and
some members of the class have examin-
ed the whole region from the point four
miles below Oxford to Monroe and the
South Carolina line. while some have
made q study of the coastal plain de-
posits. The elementary class is made up
almost entirely of graded school teachers
| who are full of enthusiasm for their
and spend some time in the laboratory
each day studying minerals and rocks,
taking an occasional trip to the field
| around Chapel Hill. This course has
done much to popularize nature work
with our teachers.
| Another study in which much valua-
BILE work has been done is zoology. Mr..
II. E. Cocker has had a small class OF
earnest workers studying plant life and
animal life. In plants they began with
diatoms and have gone through the
ferns. In animal life they began with
the amoeba and the hydra, and are now
studying earthworms. The pupils have
learned to use a microscope to mount
and dissect their specimens, and to make
| sections. Serious work of this kind can
not fail to be of great value to our teach
ers who stand in need Of actual train
ing rather more than improvement in
method. Suggestions as to method will
be all the more valuable when based on
knowledge already acquired.
On Saturday evening DR.. Thos. Hume
lectured on Mrs. Browning.
woman, poet, prophet" was the sub
ject under which he presented Mrs
Browning. With an introduction on the
relation of the deductive mind of woman
to the inductive mind of man and her
influence on the progress Of thought, he
discussed the comparative lack of female
poets and set Mrs. Browning in her
exceptional high place. A graphic pic
ture of her early life was drawn amidst
luxurious surroundings with all that
wealth. culture. special tutors, physical
development, English landscape, on the
Hope End estate, could supply for the
making of a rare personality. The dis
asters following fast and following
faster that darkened this picture and
secluded her for long years. Robert
Browning, happy invasion of this stu
dious and self-controlled loneliness, their
marriage, their idyllic days with Mrs.
Jameston and the Mackrays and Car
lyles, with Kenyon and other noble
spirits in Rome and Paris and finally in
her adopted home, Florence, her rich
correspondence, her modest but marked
| individuality of character were all
sketched in glowing colors. We saw her
as perfect woman commanding the ad-
| miration and love of the great husband
and were admitted into the secret sung
| in the "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
| and then as poet with tones caught from
| Hebrew Teer and Greek dramatist and
all that wealth Of literature treasured
UP in her enforced solitude and nobly
| used as health returned. Her method Of
treating questions pertaining to her sex,
to the children in factories, to the social
| troubles and the religious life Of her
| day, her defence of Christianity against
a misplaced humanism, her prophetic
| insight into the struggle Of Italy, under
Mazziai and Cavour and Victor EN-
manuel for liberty and unity, her poetic
studies Of Napoleon the Third and other
historic characters connected with this
great Italian movement, her power, her
charm, her glazing defects in diction and
metre, her spiritual intuition, her rescue
Of the great falling love, from Byronic
smirch and tain, her alliance Of imagi-
nation and faith were all wildly sug-
L nxnith illil fiuc, din acnorn.