The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1899-08-18
An Open Letter to the Teachers of
Mobiles County.


/ I have been asked to give in outline
the substance of some talks I gave you
toward the close of our summer school
pertaining to pedagogical matters.
These notes cleaned from many
sources are here given in connected
form for the first time.
At the start let me say, it has always
seemed to me that the real school a
teacher makes by her work and efforts
depends in a large measure upon the
ideal school she has formulated in her
mind and keeps constantly before her.
The imagination should have a large
place in all school work. We grow
or grovel according as our ideals are
high or low.
Cultivate in your pupils high ideals
in the school virtues of punctuality,
regularity, neatness, accuracy, silence,
industry and obedience. The child
who letters in his work through the
day and is never ready with his lesson
when his class is called can not be
called punctual, even if he is never
tardy when school is called. It has
been said that if cleanliness is next to
goodness then soap and water sis
means of grace, but a boy with clean
shirt and a new red necktie, who has
visible ring of earthly deposit around
his neck and wrists, whose books are
dog cared, soiled and pencil marked,
and his desk cut and daubed with ink,
has no lofty ideal of what it means to
be neat.
The child in school should be i'm
pressed with the idea that he is in
business, that his desk is his Office
and that if he expects to succeed with
his business he must be on hand to
open his Office regularly each day at
nine o'clock, be punctual in all his
appointments, ready with his lessons
at the proper time, keep his books and
papers with as much care as good
business man would, and all his sur
roundings in the best possible con-
ditiOn. Once you get this routine
established in your school, it becomes
a habit, and the careless, slOvenly boy
becomes neat in his person and cloth
ing.
That pupil, who has the idea that it
makes no difference whether: the ans
wer to the problem he has just worked
is right or wrong, because there is no
money involved, and who is hurried
through his work that he may gain
time to play, instead of proving the
result again and again has no true
sense of the Importance of accuracy.
He should be taught that in thus do:
ing he has told lie with figures. If
you allow this kind of work, you be-
come a party to 1t, and remember that
an inaccurate teacher is a discourage
ing example to pupils.
Pupils should be taught that there
are times when they, should suppress
all impulses, and resist all temptations
to make a noise-that they should
learn to control themselves. ). This in
no way need interfere with their ac-
tivity, their application or, industry,
for a good schools the place where
pupils acquire the habit of industry
and the love of work. A school that
does not inculcate the habit of industry
is fraud upon the taxpayers, but at
the same time pupils should be taught |
that activity, does not mean noise.
1t is known to be quite q difficult
matter for the average American child |
to render prompt and implicit COM |
pliance with what is required and
necessary in order to have good work I
done in school-in other words it is
not easy for him to be obedient. Now
the child must learn the lesson OF obe-
dience somewhere, in the home under
his parents, i'm the school under his
teacher, or in the courts Of law, with
the heavy hand Of society laid firmly
upon him. While he should be shown
that disobe dience means an arrest Of
development and an arrest OF progress,
yet the notion that a pupil must know
fho r.oocnn fn1, nx,nI.v command hnfnraI