The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1900-09-07
sHERMAE COUNTY TEACHERS.
First Meeting OF the Association For the
New school Year Held at the Court
House Saturday.

I6aGleES- as5aGlaLlO4 M.S AeA4 ~ bAo
/ court house Saturday. This was the
initial assembling Of the association
I for the school year Of 1901, and al
though meaRerIy attended, still it was
/ interesting from some points Of view
Fred Barnett read a paper on "The
Duties Of the Teacher in the Closing
Year Of the Nineteenth Century" He
said in part:
Those who object because the course Of study
/ in our common schools and high schools does
not fit pupils for the practical duties Of life,
. fail 70 comprehend the real purpose Of schools.
It Is doubtless true as they say, that they have
/ seen boys come out Of school without practical
I knowledge Of every day business Life
Have not men come out Of church lacking this
identical knOEledgsf Yet, neither the school
nor the church is TO be censursd for this. Their
vOrk-espeoiaIly the work Of the schools bet
I ter than 70 teach people 70 run banks That
viii be learned when the time comes
I Let the schools be preserved for their real
/ purposs-the spreading Of knowledge that is
good, uplifting and beautiful, and which is use
fuI because It is good, uplifting and beautiful.
Let rs keep out Of our schools everything which
appeals to the lower side Of humanity.
| 1t is not that with which pupils viii come IN
1 should have In school. It is that with which
they viii not come in cOntact-things they must
live without If they do not get them in school.
| Introduce play very spaEingly. The few hours
per week for part Of the school year are all
too short at best for the work that is to be done
/ good, healthy, honest work. If manual train
ing is TO be used, use it for esthetic purposes
rattan than industrial Let not the school
room degenerate into the shop.
/ Let Us have more memory work, and with it
more reasoning. Let Us have more Imagination.
Do not be afraid Of mythology and fairy stories
People have too little imagination as a general
thing. They should be given the right start
while in school. Society threatens to descend
into gross materialism. The teacher can do
much toward preserving the ideal. Let beauty
Of character, nObleness Of thought and sanity
Of life be the aim Of education.
Then came a paper by h. W. Stewart
on "Tbe Responsibilities Of the Teach
er on the Eve of the Twentieth Cen
tury," being in part as follows:
Responsibility is the correlative Of freedom.
To ObEga te ones self to something selfimpOsed
that, that alone, is all for which we stand
responsible as individuals. Every man is SOW
I ereign Of his own soul, and from the beginning
has never in truth been forced to bow the knee
to his fellow. He enIarges his sphere and says:
These things shall do, for they are my herit-
age" His actions come from within, and thus
he becomes law unto himself. Man is pro
gressive; he cOmmunes with his own nature and
sees that he is the embodiment Of all good
Within the hash-ight which passes before his
intelligence he discerns avenues heretofore IN
known. He enters, and feels more and more
as he proceeds that liberty is, and for him.
Staggering beneath his load, and trembling,
yet sure Of equilibrium, there is presented
spectacle that stops for moment the breath Of
angels and wins the commentator Of his God
This is freedom, but for every act Of liberty ne
must pay the price Of responsibility.
One Of the greatest Jet most pleasant respOn-
sibilities which you must shoulder on the com
ing Of the new century, is an increased love, an
increased knowledge Of the world that touches
50 closely upon yOu-tI1st Of nature
| The absence Of these qualities makes teaching
failure. Already the testimony Of too many
has gone I o confirm the fact that teaching is
| dull and therefore unpleasant. But I am war
/ ranted IN saying that when this is the case with
! the head Of the school, the teacher suffers not
so much from this intellectual drudgery as the
| children, over whom, in addition to their hard
/ and dry lessons in mathematics and language,
/ he casts his intellectual gloom, driving the
young ont Of school, creating a distaste for
D
/ ance instead Of education.
Robert Burns was exceedingly fond Of nature.
You cannot read his two pOems-the one ad-
dressed To Mountain Daisy on turning one
down on an April day the other, ITO Mouse.
on turning her up In her nest in cold November
| you cannot read these two poems, say, with
ont being the better for having done so.
Carlyle was perplexed at nature. To him it
I was the great riddle; the sphinz, which, could
I ~
dsTOured him. But after great struggle he
came te an abiding faith and exclaims. as the
hOOd-hght Of conversion passes over him: 20
Nature! or what is Nature7 Hal Why do I
not name thee God7 Art not thou the living
garment Of God3 The Universe is not
dead and demoniacal, but gOdlike and my
fsthersp
As soon as the child begins to survey the works
Of nature they are wonderful to him-a curiosity
shop. few years pass over his head. He
ceases to wonder and soon the works Of an In
finite God appeal to him no more. Indeed, the
earth becomes dead and demoniacal. and il
ever IL becomes the duty of the teacher to rescue
the perishinE, it is to awaken the young man
from this lsgarthy abOunding in dreams Of
doubt, agnOsticism, atheism. Teach him the
philoso ply Of nature. Interest him in concrete
examples msnifsstly the handfWork Of the IN
seen fingers He can easily be made 70 love
nature, and then it is that be is not far from
God.
OF the two I had rather see the child Of an
understanding age told Of the dew and the rain
from heaven, than to see the eoclesiast moistsn |
his head with the water OF baptism To tell |
him Of the industry Of tia ant or Of the working
Of the plant which. obtaining its heat and liehE
from q luminary IS millions Of miles distant, |
lays up within its roots food for the inhospitable
winter, wiz not be Of less value than a sermon 4
eens0rious Of the man Of incidence. Than to 4
be discouraged By the pessimistic view Of the i
preacher, pointing to his catastrophe more than /
70 his glory, rather edify him by showing that 4
in nature there is a power which works for 4
righteousness that nan is the highest type OF
life on the earth, 70 whose use and for whose 4