The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-02-17
EDUCATORS FIRST DAY
SUPERINTENDENTS DISPLAY GREAT
INTEREST IN CHILD STUDY.
Report of the Jacksonville Commit
tee-PrOf. James, Address-A Large
Reception at PrOpyIaeum.

room was well filed end the fair weather
and an appreciation of the work at hand
helped to make successful session Presi-
dent Guilbert called the meeting to order
and Rev. Dewhurst led in prayer, after
which Miss Wilkinson, of this city, led the
audience in singing America"
Following the opening exercises, Secretary
Woollen, of the Commercial Club, and Mr..
Goss, superintendent of the city schools,
each made an address of welcome, the first
Offering the clubrooms to the use of the
assembled educators and the second extend
ing the privilege of visiting the various
schools in all the departments and inspect
ing the work of each.
The actual work of the forenoon was
then taken up. At the annual meeting of
the department, at Jacksonville, Fla, IN
1896. a committee, consisting of w. n. Hail
mann, chairman, w. b. Powell and Miss
n. Cropsey. was appointed to make a re-
port the following year on plans to collect
data concerning methods and courses Of
work in primary schools, tending to pro-
mote vital connection between school
studies and the educational development of
the child and the man."
Chairman Hailmann's report assumes
that the schools of America have felt more
keenly than those of any other country the
need of an educational practice that shall
meet the practical requirements of actual
life; an educational practice that shall lead
the young to field and forest, to the work
shop and the laboratory, to hearth and
home, teaching them to find joy in benefi-
cent industry rather than in indolent pas
time and nervous excitement in productive
and creative activity, rather than in the
glittering passions of overweight emotions
and morbid fancy; an education that shall
yield workers and builders. discoverers and
inventors, fathers and mothers, useful and
devoted citizens-open-eyed, open-hearted,
open-handed; an educational practice that
shall enter the very heredities of the race
and lift it steadily out of the brutal strug-
giles of savage competition into a life of
active coordination based upon mutual good
will.
AMERICAN SCHOOL TRIUMPHS.
The report assumes, Furthermore, that
under the pressure of this feeling and
tendency the American school has, In these
things, achieved triumphs which are little
known and the knowledge and study of
which are probably of more real value than
many of the current hyperphilosophical
niceties of so-called educational science and
the threshing of medieval straw imported
from European universities. These tri-
umphs of the American schools, the report
holds, should be assiduously collected, sift-
ed in the light OF generally understood prac-
teal principles, collated and placed at the
disposal of teachers for their instruction
and encouragement in professional devel-
opment.
In support of its assumptions the report
gives detailed accounts OF number OF
typical lessons observed in American
schools and analyses these in the light OF
simple practical requirements formulated
in the report, showing how skillfully in
these lessons the teachers had secured for
the children interesting personal expert
ence related to the contents of the lesson:
how they had led the children to deliberate
thought on these experiences, had stimu-
lated in the children's minds definite pur-
pose connected with the new knowledge
and had offered opportunity for the achieve
with this, the teachers had led the chill
dren 10 unite with each other in common
ends. in the achievement of which the new
knowledge was again applied to life under
new aspects and under the impulse of mu-
tual good will; how. in all these cases. the
most prominent gains to the children Were
in the development of industry, persever-
ance, presence of mind, sense of RESPONSE
bility devotion TO duty and other traits OF
is an empty sound; and how ali this had
been accomplished not only without detri-
ment to gains in knowledge, but with en-
| HANGED solidity, breadth, thoroughness and
vitality in these gains.
The lessons chosen were a number from
first primary grade, lesson in men
Suration from a similar grade a reading
lesson from a fourth grade, lesson In
form and drawing from the fourth grade
and a series of lessons in natpre-study
vital connection between the work done
and the educational development of the
children was clearly brought out Ii was
manifest the education sought was neither
Froebelian nor Pestalozzian. neither Her.
bartiaE ror Hegelian, but recognized the
essential good in the teachings of all these
pedagogic heroes: that it followed slavishly
not any man or artificial system but
| studied constantly the natural needs of the
children and sought to supply these with
all the means afforded by environment ex.
perience and conscientious professional
study, yet ever under the control and lead
ership or common sense and of common
| goodness.
The report concluded with the recon.
mendation that a committee of experts be
| appointed 10 collect data similar to those
presented, TO analyze and collate these anc
| TO report the result of their labors in the
year 1899, the necessary expenses TO be de.
| frayed by the n. l.. A.
MR. SCHAEFFER'S PAPER.
A paper on the above report was Their
| read by N. c. Schaeffer. state superntend.
ent of public instruction Pennsylvania. He
said:
'On the one hand there is a world OF
| truth and beauty and life which is at hand
| for educational purposes. and on the other
| there Is host of growing children in the
schools who are TO be trained into mature
| men and women. But how is the world OF
| truth and beauty to be linked with the men.
| tai life of each child? How are the schoo
| studies which embody the truth nearest al
hand, to be utilized in the educational de-
veiopment of the child and of man? The
preceding paper asserts that there must be
| vital connection between the two. What
| is meant by vital i'm this Connection Says
my tormentor: Webster SAYS that vita
means essential or very necessary and also
| that il means living or relating TO life. Who
VIII dispute that the connection between
/ school studies and the development of the
| child Is essential or necessary and who
| will deny that the connection between
| these studies and the growing child mus
| be a living connection. but what gain is
/ there in such statements for us primary
| teachers in our daily work? What is the
| good OF all your philosophy If il does not
bear fruit in the actual work of the school
1 room?'
I'm reply / suggest that we turn to one
| who was greater than Hegel and Herbert
| and Froebel: to the one of whom we reaC
| that he sat down and taught. and through
| the ages he has been known as the Greai
| Teacher. In the record of his life we read
| SO when they had dined. Jesus saith &c
| simon Peter. Simon. son OF Jonas Lowest
| thou me more than these? He saith unto
| him yea Lord. thou knOWest that | love
| thee. He saith unto him feed my lambs
| In this figure of speech the lambs symbol
| ize childhood and the great teacher Iilsen.
| OF feeding the lambs. In other words tn,
| assimilation of foods finds its parallel in
/ the assimilation OF knowledge. The assim
iation OF food is an organic process; or
I =