The record-union., 1897-11-25
The INSTITUTE kDJOURNS.
ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL
EVER HELD HERE.
Addresses on Various Subjects by
Professor Griggs and Miss
Rogers.

Yesterday morning the exercises OF
the Teachers Institute opened with
fine vocal solo by Mrs. Fred Pierce,
which was heartily encored.
Professor Griggs transposed his
morning and afternoon subjects. and
spoke on THE Value of Literature IN
the Teaching of History"
He said that the studies relating to
languages are indispensable in the
schools. because their aim is toward
giving q means of communication
There is another class which Is m
tended to bring the pupil into comniunl-
cation with the experience OF mahhlno'
and which are called hunalllstlc
branches, and are called historical SUD
les. Science is knowledge ana When we
say we are studying science we are
coming into contact with the knoWleuSe
that has been gained by others we
are studying much the same thlngs
that were known 1000 years ago. Ihe
approaches of civilization have more
than doubled our knowledge in the last
hundred years. Education must take
the slow man, who has not cnahSeo
and make him keep up with the fapld
collection of material. Rousseau and
Edward Carpenter have said We should
go back to the noble savage. When
we study the savage he is no longer
noble If we cannot handle the tools
of civilization we ought to go pack.
We should use the material gathered
in an active way and then pass 1t on
to the next generation. This IS accom-
plished in the largest way through the
humanitarian sciences.
The potential germ has the power OF
producing the whole thing, so man
has power of becoming all that any
man has been before him. He Is mas
ter of the ages, and has all thelr
thought and action behind him. With
time and opportunity enough he may
become anything that man has peen-
One Of the great aims of educators
is to bring out what is in the lndlVldual
child. We understand humanity only
through ourselves and ourselves only
through humanity. 1t is through
knowledge and experience that is COM
mon to both.
In the public school humanitarian
sciences are represented by history and
literature; m the high school, by other
branches History can be what we
wish TO make it. 1t is properly the
study Of the activity Of human life as
expressed through its action Litera-
ture is the expression of human Ideals,
and both are universal in the express
sion of higher life. Some contact with
humanity and the expression of art
in life is essential all through school
life. History and literature at every
point mutually interpret each other.
We cannot study history well without
exact knowledge. Mere dates and facts
hamper the child unless we teach it
other things. We must have dates,
however, because to understand the un-
folding of the life of the past we must
have definite knowledge. If we have
this we have better knowledge of his
tory
There are two ends to the study of
history. One is to gather knowledge
of organic life and it's movement; to
give the student the idea of the unfold
ing of national life. In our own coun-
try's history we find the narrow CO.
loniaI life until the time when they had
to be common defenders, and then the
effort to fuse and form as a nation
at the time of the Revolution. Another
end is to appreciate not only the un-
1OlQlUS OA EiNliiLdllQli, DOA ~ 80 a
sense of the reality of the past-that
there were men like ourselves, strug-
Cling with the same hopes and fears
and aspirations. Every teacher Of his
tory knows that this is a most difficult
thing to grasp. When we can put our
selves in the place of the Greeks at
Marathon and realize that they had
TO fight not only for themselves but for
their dear ones and their country, or
die, we know how it was at that battle.
The difference between history and
literature is that the former deals With
the facts of life and the latter with its
personal affairs. We read of the slaugh
ter of 1000 men at Culloden, but we
do not realize what that means to a
people until we read the Lament of
the Loss of Inverness. and understand
what the death of one man meant to
a family. The value of the historical
novel, like the value of literature, is
pre-eminently personal, and also most
accessible. The literature Of any pc
riod is immeasurably valuable in teach
ing history We learn from it the hab
its and customs of the Quakers. the
Puritans and the Cavaliers. In Eng
land, where they rubbed against each
other daily, it smoothed off their rough
corners, but when they came here and
We're isolated, they developed their pc
culiar characteristics to the last de-
gree. This difference is carried out in
literature, and shows the characters
tics of each class. We only need jux
taposition in life to find out that men
are good and all right. even if they do
differ from us in opinion and practice.
The period of transition in our coun-
try was when these classes came to-
gether and new industries were estab-
lished. The autobiography of Franklin
expresses this through his whole life.
1t took twenty years after the Revoiu-
ton for artistic literature to arise and
then came Irving and Cooper.
If the teacher does not like history
the pupils viii not, for we must be in
terested in what we teach. in order TO
interest others.
READING AND PHONICS.
Reading by Sentence and Phonic
Methods" was the theme Of Miss Eliz-
abeth Rogers of the Chico Normal
School.
When she began teaching country
school, she said, she was as helpless and
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