The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-06-17
TEACHERS ASSEMBLY
Now in Annual Session at
Morehead City.
Mr.. POTEAT'S ADDRESS
SUBJECT OF THE ADDRESS WAS
'.THE CHILD AS TEACHER"
THE WORK OF THE ASSEMBLY
What 1t Has Done-.Som of the Lead
ing Educators Who Have
Already Arrived.

Already Arrived.
Norehead C5tv. n. c., June 16-(Spe-
ciall-The fourteenth annual session of
the North Carolina Teachers Assembly
convened here this morning at $3.50
O'clock The trains were filled last even
ing with teachers and friends of educa-
ton from every nook and corner of the
State. and today the cause of education
is receiving the careful investigation
and earnest thought of many of the most
progressive citizens of North Carolina.
For the past fourteen years the annual
coming together at some convenient and
pleasant place in the State of the teach
ers and friends of education has been the
beginning of some forward movement to
advance the cause of general education.
There has been no assembling of the
people of the State fraught with greater
good to the people than these annual
meetings. The assembly has been the
means of bringing out the best effort of
every friend of better things for the peo-
pie and has combined into a strong,
united force the various conflicting opinl-
ons and impulses of the people. To the
work of the Teachers Assembly in large
measure is due the great strides made
in education and development in Caro-
lima. A more intelligent. earnest. pro-
gressive body has not convened in the
borders of our commonwealth than comes
together at a meeting of the Assembly
and the meeting this year is no exception
TO the rule. The large and commodious
halls of the assembly at this resort,
from old makes
existence a pleasure, are filled with life
and activity.
At $50 this morning the meeting was
called to order by Prof. w. l.. Poteat, of
Wake Forest College, president of the
assembly, amid the pleasant greetings OF
those who have met year after year for
the purpose of enjoying the pleasures of
such gathering and OF lending their in
fuence to the cause of education.
The presidents annual address was de-
liyered in a forceful and impressive
manner and was listened to with deep in
terest. Prof Poteat said in substance:
THE CHILD AS TEACHER-AB-
STRACT.
This is the first opportunity which /
have had to say anything TO you since
Won bestowed on me the distinction OF
this place. and my first word shall be one
of grateful appreciation. The Teachers
Assembly has had an honorable history,
beneficently interviewer with the recent
intellectual awakening of our State; ana
in the presence of this large number Of
the leading men and women of our great
calling one does not need the prophet eye
to foresee in the coming years a still more
honorable career in guiding to right ends
the spirit of progress astir among us.
Wordsworth complains of
Blind Authority beating with his staff
The child that might have led him.
T purpose reversing the usual relations.
Let us set the child on the dais, and the
teacher below, and, following the highest
of precedents (the college of Apostles put
to school to a little boy in arms, let US
as teachers learn of the child.
New Interest in the Child.-We are
only lately beginning to appreciate the
seaching of Jesus about the child and his
view Of external nature From the begin
ming we have had nature and the child
with rs but the best of both we are just
now discovering We are learning the es-
Genital baauty of nature unmarried by the
touch of man, and the period of literature
most marked by this insight is precisely
that in which the child is recognized and
bonored with greatest penetration and
tenderness.
1 sentimental interest is now felt
in the little child both as thing of beau
~ and as healthful and happy in the
midst of the disinusion and complaint Of
the modern world.
. A scientific interest is felt in the
-, tha arahaafnOical line
authentic epitome and recapitulation of
the beginnings of the race, and, secondly,
in a practical educational line. He has be-
come the subject of new science
Pathology. or child study. This
movement originated in Boston in 1879.
Its guiding spirit is President G. Stanley
Han. Its lines of inquiry are mainly
the contents Of children's minds, meas
ures, defects, and health. The spread of
the movement has been marked. AT
the last session of the National Educa-
ton Society an effort was made looking
To the formation OF local circles for child
study throughout the country.
Lessons from the chara cteristics Of the
child.
Innocence is the first characteristic
of the child. OF the two factors of this
quality the frst-puriy-is unhappny
hevond our learning now. The other
ignorapce-ought to be suggestive to us
We know TOO much. This scientific
time is prove to assume the airs of ON
niscienee and declare with Berthel0t
There is no longer any mystery" But
on taking stock of our real knowledge
it is less impressive than our ignorance
The problems which vexed the ancient
Greeks remain problems still The en-
larging sphere of knowledge only multi
plies the points of it's contact with tht
still unsubdued darkness.
2. Simplicity. Man is a compound o.
feeling and intellect, impulse and reason
But he has eaten of the tree of kneWi
edge and ''the head proves traitor T.
the heart. He has acquired self-con
seriousness and has laid on the natura
promptings of his spirit the constraint
of the intellect. Civilization is Target,
a process of the elaboration of life unde