The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-27
REvoLUTloNlzE THE WORK.
Or. Hall Believes Teaching in Schools
Does Not Give the Student All He is
Entitled to.


DR.. Hall spoke on "The ideal school, y
and said in part: Ideal is great word
and it has had great many interpret
tations. The word has been used to
designate completeness. The most
ideal thing from one standpoint is the
most practical, yet there is always a
prophetic element in it,
There is one requirement which ev-
cry school should comply with, and
that is that it should give growth first
place.
School means leisure; it is a time Of
growth. It isn't to learn useful knowl-
edge Its field is limited. Its idea of
utility should not be an ultimate idea.
Utility is limited in it's range and it
will degenerate If it is made an end OF
education; it is unevolutionary.
Pedagogy begins with the home; it ID
the basis of everything. Is the en-
vironment the best for the children?
Does 1t train the children? The home
is the background of education. Now,
when we live in boarding houses we
send our children to sectarlan schools
and have nurses care for them. For
the home. and school to get en- rapport
Is an excellent thing. Child study has
evolved care for the individual This
is a boon for women teacheks, while
the man cares only to teach as whole,
to have everything on the click of a
machine. To develop that kind Of in
diyidual sympathy is going to put the
woman teacher on strong footing.
The kindergarten of America seems
TO have fear Of being homelike. The
Kindergarten feels to be more than a
nurse. The ideal nurse Is infinitely
higher than the ideal lxindergartners.
II the kindergarten develops. out of rap
port with the home, woe for the mother
and for the kindergarten. If we could
have kindergartens under the caves of
the university. where people are not
symbol-mad, / feel sure that we could
remove many of the objections to kim
dergartens.
AS to the post kindergarten period,
that seems to be a sort of limbo 1t
seems to be too early to lay any stress
on technical work. We don't know pre-
cisely what to do here. There are in
dications that the gravity Of the work
Of this period should be laid on nature
study and myth. Later, from perhaps
or to II or 70, these are the years in
which technical training should begin.
There is a rapid increase in mechanical
ton at this time. 1t is a time of habit
forming, and these two pre-adolescence
years are the drill period. 1t is the
time when the energies of growth
seem to focus on the brain The proper
function of the school is to allow free
dom at this point. If the atmosphere of
the school tended to drown out rather
than repress we should have more ee-
muses. than we now possess.
1t seems to me that we could reduce
geography one-half or three-quarters.
AS we teach it now 1t is a popular sub-
Ject, and If In need of soup In which
all the ingredients Of science are mixed
up geography might be taught.
Our present drawing methods are
wrong They should be inverted up to
the 10th or 18th year In the early
years children should be allowed TO
draw everything without criticism
There are some schools where the chill
dren draw anything and draw II well.
we overdo arithmetic. / should like
to reduce 1t one-ha1f We Americana
are money-mad: we think our children
should be able to compute sums as soon
as they can talk
Elementary geometry should come In
before algebra, Constructive geometry
should precedd some forms OF arith-
metic. Reasoning about numbers is an
other normal school disease
Stories OF mathematical Reniuses
show that they never can fell how
they do II. There is peculiar iivinlnR
power In the mind. am superstItious
about this as am about reading. l be-
lieve that cultivated people can read
very rapidly that the salient words
come out, and they have power of skip
i think we should never teach our