The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1897-01-07
a arRONG PAPER.

a aTRONG PAPER.
Before the State Teachers Association
held in St. Paul last week. Prof Geo. A
Stanton Of this city delivered an addres.
which is full Of food for thought. The Her.
AID offers no apology for reproducing it en-.
tire, for all that the professor says relative to
the treatment of deficient and apparently
dull child in school, is equally applicable to
his treatment at home. II parents would
take to themselves the excellent advice and
suggestions that the professor gives to teach
ers, not only would the teachers work be
more fruitful, but the child would receive
inmeasureable benefit. Read and ponder:
THE BEST METHOD WITH THE SLOW AND
DEFICIENT PUPIL.
No more serious problem Is presented TO
the teacher than that suggested by the sub
ject OF this paper. Says Prot. Bohannon,
who has been associated with President G.
Stanley Hall in the special study of dull and
deficient children: sNo other subject Of
pedagogy manifests such crying need tor
intelligent, sympathetic, patient study" He
who through a life devoted to such study
gives to tothe educational world the best
methods to be pursued in the training Of
abnormal children will be entitled to place.
among the foremost contributors to the
science and art of education. With our
present knowledge of the action of abnorr
NAL minds, what can be said will be, at
most, merely suggestive.
Whoever would understand the Develop
ment ofthe moth through the larva, the cat
erpillar, and the chryalis state to that of the
perfect being, can command the results 1t
scientific observation and study, and can
feel that the knowledge which he obtains IS
comprehensive and exact. Psychology re-
veals in a general way the order of the de-
yelopment of the mental powers, yet marked
exceptions to the observed laws are seen in
every school room. Meagre, indeed, is the
knowledge at the command of the young
teacher to whom is intrusted the develop
ment and guidance of an immortal soul az
ready dwarfed, crippled and deformed How
serious the problems which confront any
teacher who is accountable for the mental
and moral growth OF forty children, all more
or less abnormal. Hopeless would be the
task, miserable, indeed, would be the, fail
nre, did not heaven-born intuition, tact
and loving sympathy direct the true teacher
along the path upon which science sheds Sc
little light. Y
1.-THE education of the masses is the safe.
guard of the republic, future self-preserya
ton would demand that the earnest and soli
citious care of the state be given to the edu
cation of those childf III i5m whom tx
tramp and criminal classes are so largely re
cruited, that instead of becoming excrescen
ces on the body polite, they may becom,
useful members ofsociety. However desir
able or necessary special schools for tn
training OF defective children may be, 70
the present, at least. the responsibility mus
rest upon the public schools.
Statistics, based, it is true, upon meage
Investigation, indicate that from seven to tie,
per cent of our school population may bs
classed as distinctly abnormal. Yet we ar
forced to acknowledge that our public
school system and courses of study are con
structed with little or no regard for TIL
training ofthe dull or the deficient child
the one above all others that most needs tn
solicitous attention and care of the state. 4
victim OF heredity, and of unfavorable hom
environment. intensified oftentimes by
pernicisus school environment during hi
earliest years, dwarfed in every element o
growth, he appeals NEST elequently to tn,
sympathy of the true teacher. How can sh
supply the conditions favorable to menta
andmoral growth, and so cultivate the semi
dormant powers that the deficient child ma,
become a well developed adult7 H
This leads to the consideration of tw,
widely different methods employed with de
feient children. Few people are uniformly
endowed by nature. AS has been aptly said
every one has been born .'short' in some O
his mental powers. Few there are whose
minds are harmoniously balanced. The
s.jack of all trades" is usually master Of
none in mental, as well as in manual attain
ments. 1t is suggested that in the case Of
those who are particularly s.short'' in one
direction, the ''long" powers be cultivated.
In this age of specialization the extension OF
electives in our higher institutions of learn
ing has continued until our high school
courses are beginning to encourage so called
specialization; and it is even proposed, in
the case of detectives, to extend the plan to
the grades of our schools. If the pupil is
"short" in language and s'long'' in mathe-
mathics, let his reasoning powers be culti-
waited and developed, they say, and let his
natural defects be respected, for the teacher
cannot act as a foster mother to re -endow his
mental powers. In fact, the teacher may be
spelling genius in an attempt to secure an
ordinary mind. 1t is true that genius is al
ways abnormal, and we may all feel with
President G. Stanley Hall, when, referring
to the defective child, he says: s.Tread soft
ly, for you may be in the presence of genius =
Yet it is also true that the genius is an abb
normal type of the defective. and the cult;