The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-02-03

weather Na0er the waving trees anu
running brook, suggest movements OF
legs, arms, wrists and hands which
give the best sort Of gymnastie training,
in addition to the Quickening Of SYM
patty and interest that comes from
the Identification Of self with all this
active life
Rhymes or Poems.
Rhymes and simple poems are valu-
able auxiliaries to this nature work,
and serve also to make the beginnings
of literature. The poet often gives a
tongue to What the young child feels.
The child heart everywhere rejoices in
the time when
THE gOlden-rod is yellow.
The fields are turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
or in
Pretty gypsy dandelion,
Dancing in the SUM-"
and no less n the winter when
'Out Of the bosom of the air,
Out Of the cloud-folds of her garments
shaken,
over the woodlands brown and bare,
over the harvest fields fOrsaken,
Silent and soft and slow,
DeSCendS the snow.
Language.
The repetition Of such rhymes and
memory gems helps very much in the
language work Of the school The child's
vocabulary is enriched thereby, and
ri5nt forms of expression appropriated.
Stories.
Stories are another important agency
in the acquisition Of language. The
science story. nature myth. or fairy tale
told in connection with the observation
Of natural objects or some particular
happening of the day is reproduced in
both oral and written exercises.
Reading.
The best preparation for reading is
not to duh the interest and contract its
province by combining the child's atten-
tiCn TO de symbols Of ideas, but rather
to quicken and direct the natural de-
sire to hear and TO know about things
which shall create the need of supple
menting ones own slender stock Of
information by all that books can offer.
Recognition Of words and letters con-
stitutes the mechanism Of reading, and,
like any other mechanical process. is
only meaG6 to an end. Reading is a
process Of Interpretation, and as we
see with all we have seen and know
with all we have known, 50 we must
interpret ideas with all that we have
in mind. The first years of school life,
then. should be largely devoted to gain
ing the basis Of experience which gives
the power of understanding and inter-
preting ideas. Out of the richness OF
the child's experience is born the desire
to relate, to share what one has enjoy
ed, and with the constant practice of
= rfa-A
oral and written exercises grows mas
terry Of language.
Hand Work.
But there is a language Of the hand
which may not be omitted in our efforts
to endOW the human being with full
powers os utterance. Music, drawing,
modelling, color work, outlining with
thread or wOryted. cutting and folding
are not 10 be clGEsed as "4adS' or
''friEs,' but as essential means of edu-
cation. The child must learn to speak
"a various language" in order to come
into fun possession Of all his powers.
Number Work.
In connection with these various
forms Of handwork we discover the
most natural methods of number work.
The best authorities agree that the first
two years Of school life Should be kept
free from drill in number. Much et-
fort ig now wasted in attempting TO
teach prematurely what can be easily
acquired at a period when the reason
ing faculty is more fully developed. In
his Education of Man. Froebel points
out the &C nuec ion betwee draw ng AMI
number. How many legs for d chair,
a table? How many arms for man
How many cherries in this bunch? and
so on. In folding and cutting the rela-
ton of parts to a whole IS q matter OF
practical demonstration. Music,
writes the wise COmenius, is especially
natural 10 rs. for as coon as we see
the light we Immediately sing the song
of paradise" and he adds fervently:
"Rleaged i5 the home where voices re
sound in music" No less blessed IS the
school where harmony, grace ana
RHYTHM are cultivated through the
agency Of song.
And there is no more complete sum-
mary Of the general purpose Of the
first school years than the statement
of this same herald Of modern educa-
ton:
As TO sound learning, it admits OF a
threefold division. for we learn to know
a-me things. to do some things and 10
saw some things; or, rather, we learn
to know. to do and to say all things ex-
cent such as are bad"