Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-03-04
The superintendent Question.

The superintendent Question.
Some Additional Considerations In he
half of the Best Training for Our
Boys and Girls.
Although The Phoenix and other papers
have already printed excellent articles on
this subject, it seems to the writer that it
is so important that the advantages of ade-
quate school supervision should no longer
be lost to our people, and that they should
feel that our community at Hinsdale can
no longer afford to go without it, that it
has seemed a duty to bring forward some
thoughts which have not yet been present
ed.
1t was Henry Ward Beecher who said
that while we are over careful in business
matters we too often submit our children,
the priceless treasures that God has given
us, to the laundering and incompetence of
unframed or Inexperienced teachers. Is it
not true? We would hardly give a costly
dynamo into the care of a High school pu-
pill to develop and manage, though he may
have studied the dynamo thoroughly; why
the infinitely more complex mind of
child which he has not studied at
| ala simply invaluable instrument of
most delicate construction, to the growing
parts of which irreparable injury may be
done so easily? A plant can be forever
stunted by improper conditions Of growth.
Is plant more easy to understand or more
valuable than an intelligence? Our boys
and girls are worthy of every care. Ii we
must pay so little to our teachers as to Sc
cure only the unframed ones, why let them
do their experimenting on your child?
| There is not one of our teachers who will
claim that he at once sprang to the full
stature of perfect teacher. With no one
TO advise him he must have learned by eX-
| perience gained at the expense of our
| children
With competent supervision this expert
mentlng would be almost wholly done away
with. In this age of progress the public
school has not Jagged behind The i'm
prOvements in methods of teaching, ets.,
have been as marvellous and as labor saving
and as money-saving as any other of the
great inventions of the age, and the minds
of children in the most progressive com
munties are no longer left to methods OF
training which went out with talow dips
and stage coaches.
The saving comes in the vastly larger
number of pupils who are now edu ,atcd
than the smaller number who. under old
methods, ever felt able to 90 beyond the
grammar grade; the much greater amount
which can be taught in the same amount
of time, and the remarkable precision anC
breadth of knowledge on so many import
ant subjects formerly entirely omitted, tha
any little urchin in one OF our best school:
today will display in any slight questioning
you may chance to give him.
Under the close school supervision which
is possible where one man, specially trained
for that purpose, devotes his entire tim,
to the work of superintendent, Their,
is an actual gain either of time, or thor
oughness, or both, in the fact that the har
mony of grades can be made perfect
Change of teachers since the grading o
our schools has occasoned, necessarily
much lack of harmony between the grade.
which only the most careful examination
makes evident, but which means loss eithe
of time spent in doing things twice, o
in taking too long to do them, or else il
thoyoughness through too long or too shor
time spent on the subject or through actua
omission.
Professional superintendent will meal
more TO our teachers-and we have beer
remarkably fortunate in obtaining goo,
teachers under such conditons-than an,
professional books or papers can mean.
will be the guide and aid to labor saving
money-saving work, that will treat tn
minds of our children as though they wer
of some value, and worthy of every etfor
of wisdom and of every advance of tn
science of teaching, that may be made mos
capable to meet the demands of this age o
keener and keener competition, in whicl
weaklings and dolts will carry the hO1.
In the light of the results what RICH
have we to consider the very small add
tonal tax that it means to each of us
The boy who doesn't pay for these advant
ages now will some time, perhaps in a wa
not so easy and so tolerable. Let us rs
to the occasion and show that penny nov
, is not as big in our eyes as a dollar tie
, years hence; and that we cannot afford /
run the risk of being behind the best con
munties any longer, for the best is non
too good for our boys and girls, and tn
, most scientific means of education mean a
. much to us as the newest shuttles and Dol
. bins. C.. II. PATTERSON.