The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-03-22
DR.. MELDRUM ON HOME STUDY
ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE
FRANKLIN SCHOOL. UNION
Pastor of the Central Presbvteria,
Church Points Out the Duty of
Parents to Children in Connection
With Their Social Life-Why
Success Followed the Scholars in
a School He Attended.

Success Followed the Scholars in
School He Attended,
Il am very glad" said DR.. Medium.
at the meeting Of the Franklin School
union last evening, that this matter is
to be discussed at future meeting We
are taught to pray Give us this day
our daily Bread and each day brings
Its portion and also its duty. I think
we should also ask Give us this day
cur daily duty
When I came to my study this
morning I thought my duty was clear
ly before me. I had been asked to
speak here tonight, and I thought it
my duty to prepare for this subject. I
had just gotten ready to consider the
subject when in walked a long man
with long hat, and I saw at once
that he was a preacher He called me
by my name, which is very good
name, Andrew, and 1 graSped him by
the hand and called him Andrew 1t
was his name, too.
I'VE had been schoolmates twenty
five years ago, and / saw at once that
1T was my daily duty today to talk over
old times and old friends with my
school friend of old. And as we talk
ed l was carried back, as in a dream,
to the old schoolhouse. 1t was a beau
tiful schoolhouse. 1t was a log house,
the bark being peeled off from the logs
from decorative motives and the out
side plastered with mud.
THE inside was also plastered with
mud and covered with whitewash, and
the floor was hard and polished. Mott
polished wood; mud polished by the
feet of the twenty or thirty boys and
girls who attended school within its
walls. 1t was one-story house with
a cottage roof. We called it a cottage
roof then. l don't know as you would
call it any kind of a roof now. And
in that one room was contained the
primary department, the intermediate
department, the high school and the
department preparatory for college.
''At the front door stood a pail Of
water, and when a boy was tired Of
study up would go a hand, and it
would be:
Please, master, can have a drink
or Please, master, can l get pail Of
water"
There were scholars in that school
from five years of age to tWenty-one,
and there were quiet hours for study.
And suddenly something like an eXag-
gerated bat would fly across the room
and hit some boy in the corner over
The shoulder. 1t was made of leather,
and was divided into ten tails at the
end, and it was the masters telephone,
anu he ndQ Seul d telepIlOIllC uleSSdSe
to the boy In the corner to come for
ward and bring the telephone with
him, and the boy comes, too, and stands
pale and trembling like a culpr1t pre-
pairing for the gallows. There is silence
in the room for a while, and then 1t is
anything but silent There were small
tots to whom the master, graduate
from Edinburgh university, taught A,
B and c.
I'm this cross roads school the teach
ing ranged from spelling cow to the
reading of Virgil. From almost in
fants to men they were all taught by
the same teacher, in the same room and
all subjected to the same discipline, and
among those who attended there during
the three years my friend and I were
there are now numbered twelve
preachers, eight doctors and I don't
know how many lawyers. Some are in
parliament, some are studying law,
some are in the mission field, and one
is principal of female Institution.
And how do account for this? Well,
in the first place there was competent
instruction. You say I should inform
myself as to the instruction in our
not my business to be posted, I haven't
time for what it is your business to
keep abreast of. This master knew
how to teach and keep order. There
was more than that; there was home
discipline.
"a friend just told me today of a
boy who came to school the 18th of
January and informed his teacher that
he was not coming to school any more
that he was going to work. Today his
mother brought him to school and said
that from the 25th of January to to-
day he had not been at work, but had
been playing truant. Such thing as
that could not have happened in that
old school. That boy had no home. He
had a place to sleep, to eat, to drink
to go in out Of the weather, but he had
no home.
"a boy is a bundle of possibilities.
Now the teacher stands on one side and
the parents stand on the other, and
between them they are going to de-
velope those possibilities, bring out
what is in him and make man of him.
There is the possibility of character.
Between the teacher and the parent he
must be DEVELOPED. The two must work
together. They must work, as we say,
into each others hands. The mother is
not doing her duty if by simply send
ing the boy to school she expects that
by touching this button the teacher
will do the rest.
1.-The teacher has a right to expect
the child to be disciplined in it's own
home If not it is ruined The success
of the old school was due to the fact
that the teacher and parent worked to-
gether. 1t is in your power in one hour
of home conversation to neutraliZe all
the teachers influence for year.
II have profound sympathy for our
teachers of the public schools and a
profound regard for all Of them 1 have
met. 1 think that not even the preach
ing of the gospel itself is more ennob-
ling than teaching. We awe right to
expect to see competency in our teach
ers, the right to look for aptitude to
teach; the right to look for kindness
and wisdom. and we don't want to
know that when our boy comes home
he is worse than when he went to
school. We want them to be diSci-
plined.
But suppose the home is neglected.
How often We see two boys, equal in
brightness, side by side in the same
class. One goes ahead from grade to
grade, the other stays where he is or
goes backward. Why, it's the home!
One boy has a home and the other has
not.
I'm regard to home study. Do you
know what 1 think is the solution?
First, sympathic interest on the part of
the parent, in his child The supervi-
sion of a child's study by the parent
l take no stock in. That's not what
the parent is for.
THE average mother bearing the
burdens Of home life; what can she do
toward giving anything like instruction
to her child. Many mothers have never
gone beyond the fourth and fifth grades
!, md