The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-27

language as such. We should never talk
unless We have something to say. If We
could give up language work as such
ana make every lesson language les
son and write and talk about those
thlngs which interest us, we should
learn better and quicker.
In regard to French and German, we
nave some methods in which the mus
Giles come in. At years old is the
time for oral teaching of languages. No
child has right to come into a school
room and study living language with
abstract things. They should be taught
by things they can see. Allow the eye
TO reinforce the ear. No person can
learn foreign language with precis-
Ion unless he masters it before Adde'S
cence.
The same is true with music. 1t be-
gins with the rhythm of marching and
then should come singing, taught
through the ear Music is not to learn
notes Two or three years after this
period, comes period for q dead lam
guage. A dead language Is usually OBJ
tanned through the eye and hand, and
at IA to Is the mind is in the sentence
sense" The child is beginning to think.
Interest must be predominant. The
child should understand what he reads,
use translations if necessary. I have
none of this horror of ponies, or trans
lations, and many of the best teachers
require the use of good translations.
In physical training we are in the
midst of chaos. There is the Sargent
method where you go to machines and
try to get the body symmetrical to be
like everybody else
The Turner system tries to take along
the soul. The Swedish system is to get
the body into proper habitual attitudes
These systems have their schools, they
are in opposition ard each has it's adj
vocates. Our conceptions of physical de-
velopment are like the blind mans de-
scription of the elephant. In manual
training we do not know exactly what
to do.
In the ideal school, if it ever descends
upon us, we shall have two states In
the first, the child will make toys and
higher up the object will be to make
scientific apparatus. believe the ideal
school will be beautiful 1t will be
pleasant, we can have pictures, aqua
RUINS, things to please.
A picture WHITES the minds of chill
dren better than anything else.
| think that a school house should
have something in it. Think what a
piece of apparatus means. 1t means
years Of thought and experiments.
through schools and don't know the
names Of half-a dozen plants or insects,
don't know the geology OF the town in
which they live. We cannot have an
ideal school without religion taught in
it, in the spirit at least.
1t seems to me that normal schools
should study the evolution Of the soul
Teachers should not study psychology
that sort of psychology that begins
and ends in words. But if you define
psychology as the evolution Of the soul,
think a teacher may not know any
thing else to teach children better than
those who know everything except the
child
A great many universities are afraid
Of pedagogy. Pedagogy is the phil
osophy of history; what favors what
retards.
1t is a great deal to fall in love with
the ideal. and the time is now come
when we realize the education is en-
yironment. God is teacher, Provi-
dence is a teacher. All religions are
teachers.
Science is the only standard of value
we have in the world whereby to
measure what is true and what is false.