Arizona republican., 1899-12-30
ARIZONA TEACHERS
Second Days Session of the Joint
 Institute.

teachers institute consisted largely of
 music and recitations Miss Emma
 Culver of Tucson gave a vocal solo,
 Miss COwan of Tucson a recitation,
 Mrs. Kingsly and Miss Ruth Strauss
 of Tucson an Instrumental duet, Miss
 Attic Hughes a violin solo. Miss Lizzie
 Dickerson or Tucson a cornet solo,
 Ralph w. Pittock a recitation and re-
 turn, and a violin solo by Master War
 ren Grossetta. The greater part of the evening was taken up by the Rev.
 C. Ferguson of the Tucson Congrega- tional church in an able address on the comparison between the mediaeval uni
 versailles and modern democracy. The
 speaker said the ethinkers of the mediae-
 val period were individual discoverers.
 He took his listeners back to the Ro-
 man reign and pointed out the causes
 that produced this individual thought. All energies were bent to maintain the
 rule of the emperors and the research
 for truth and knowledge had ceased.
 In the chaos of the dark ages were laid the foundations of the republic of the
 modern world. Contrary to the set opinions of many, the Catholic church
 of the age was the salvation of civili-
 zation. The monks rekindled the fires of research in those old moss-covered retreats. They also promulgated the idea of equality among men and made 1 il possible for the meanest peasant to assume the papal robes. Every monas- l tery was a seat of learning and when they gave place to the great universi- ties of Europe and England this dem ocratic idea was transplanted to them. Those great universities in the strict est sense were little republics of from five to twenty thousand population, where it was possible that a man bare ly of age could occupy the presidential chair and pass judgment on the most eminent professor of the institution. The rich and the poor, the royal youth and the peasant ooy were governed by the same regulations and received the same favors. New ideas, new laws, rew worlds were discovered tneiI. Everyone was in quest of something new. Wherever learned men were there was the university. It was the men who made the universities. How different today, when the universities are attempting to make the men. The seats O. learning today are knowledge shops where learning is bought and sold. A university is measured by it's endowment and not by the men who fill it's chairs. Students attend to ac- quire, not to discover, to be nodded and not to mold. God was a potter and made man in his image, but only when man assumed to mold his human clay- did the spirit of his God pervade him.
 Wednesday morning the session was opened with an invocation by Professor George B. Blount of Phoenix. Secretary J. D. Loper of Mesa called the roll and Mrs. J. W. Tourney of Tucson rendered piano solo. Hon. Rochester Ford of Tucson spoke for an hour on the Re lation of the Library to the Schools" MT. Ford spoke deliberately, but he handled his subject in such a manner as to command the strictest attention throughout the discourse. MT. Ford said in part:
 Certainly the library and common schools are wonderful institutions. The schools represent the aspirations hopes and fears-the struggle through many centuries. Plato, Demosthe nes, Pericles and Caesar represent the classical standard of the individual. a standard not attained in modern times.
 
 was attained at the expense of the community. I believe our age is the better I believe that the school house is the embodiment of a higher ideal; it represents the struggle of the great masses for more light"
 Before he left the deiineatior of the schools the speaker took occasion to criticize them and the educated pso- pie. He declared that the educated people should set the example Of bet ter conduct and thought. It is sup posed that the vulgar only approve of things which are a burlesque on the best ethical action, yet the great sen sational newspapers, periodicals and plays find their greatest support from the educated classes. Sometimes in the very shadows of universities swind- ling schemes and lotteries are flourish ing. and their manipulators growing rich on their iIl-gotten gains. The speaker dealt with the libraries as follows:
 "The importation of Knowledge elab- crate though it may be. fails to develop fully the faculties of observation and reflection. To the library we must look for that with which 10 supplement the school teaching. I imagine as well as the legal and medical professions does not tend to broaden the mind. In the continual association of the teacher with those mentally inferior to him in the sharpening Of the wits of the law yer and his experiences at the bar the mental horizon is contracted. This tendency must be enumerated ana nothing can accomplish this so well as the intellectual companionship which the library makes possible.
 After a five minutes recess s. P McCrea of Bisbee read an exhaustive history of Arizona, compiled by him self This number was placed on the programme to introduce a movement by the teachers of Arizona % write a history of Arizona. for a text book to the public schools of the territory The paper was supported by another on inc early settlers by Prof. George E. Rlount of Phoenix.
 The afternoon session opened with