The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-01

new strength comes with each trial and
the boy-respectable now-respects him
self; successful. mas confidence in himself
and foundation for character has been
oullded, whether the boy can write or
not.
He knows now that he has n place in
the world, and he will try, and try brave
ly, to fill it well.
Yet again, we cannot avoid noticing the
bad boy. but that little girl shrinking
back, timidly keeping out of sight, so
quiet, so good, so still. we scarcely think
of her at all, yet she needs our help the
most.
What will the great world do to her.
should she he thrown upon it unassisted
| The way to reach her is, indeed, hard.
Yet we must find it.
y few words at a time will win her
confidence. Little things she may do will
give her pleasure. First, after or before
school. Then in school-the passing of
things, and so on. Finally. the recitation
becomes no longer a burden. And little
by little she becomes stronger, more sell
reliant, and we may rest, for in her own
quiet, womanly way she will battle well
with. her own difficulties.
The oftentimes dreaded and sometimes
banished school society has an important
place in the cultivation of self-reliance.
1t requires some nerve and self-confi-
dence for a pupil to conduct such an eXer-
cise and the most timid girl or bashful
boy will oftentimeS undergo this trial
rather than be considered d coward by
those who elected him.
In the leadership in our physical culture
games we find, also, this developing
power.
But in the preparation of lessons. more
than elsewhere. do we see this lack of
self-reliance and the opportunity for its
development.
That teacher is doing a grievous wrong
who assigns for preparation lesson care
lessly laid out. insufficiently explained or.
either in length or advancement, beyond
the strength OF the child.
Children are all anxious to be at the
front and if required to battle with diff
culties too great for them, will receive and
seek help from any source-so preparing
a sort of recitation, but utterly missing
the real object of study. which should be
character building. and planting in its
stead only seeds of doubt and distrust of
self. Better a thousand times an honest
failure, with honest effort behind ii, than
a glib recitation which has for its only
merit memory repetition OF unmeaninS
symbols.
The most common sin of We teachers
is asking children to prepare lessons that
are too long.
A child in the fifth or sixth grade is
asked to prepare spelling lesson-say to
spell. syllabicate and define. say twenty,
even fifteen, unfamiliar words. Can he do
it? Certainly not. and If he could, how
are we to find it out in ten-minute les
son? The child feels, as rule. that the
teacher asks no more than he should pre-
pare. and finding that he can [. loses con-
fidence in himself. So it goes through all
the studies. and we see the results plain
est in the arithmetic and reading of the
seventh and eighth grades. where a prob
lem made up of three or four sentences is
a paralytic stroke to the thinking powers.
and a three or four-syllabled word forms
a barrier over which it seems impossible
for him TO pass.
1t is well to have knowledge. specific
information but it is everything to have
courage. strength. power to help oneself
self-reliance.