The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-10-26

with an offender or a sluggish stu
dent in retirement will do far more
good than the assistants best effort
working as she must in a room in
which the offender is tacitly supported
against her by sympathetic comrades.
The assistant teacher ought TO facill-
tate this task of inspection by frank
and open conduct toward her princi-
pal.
1.-THE assistant has a right to com
mendation when it is deserved. When
one is moved by it to Incidence,
dozen find it a spur to the winning of
higher commentator. But faults
must be told and faults must be
faced.
I'm what way may this be most
effectually done? Not certainly by
scolding the whole corps of teachers
for a fault discerned in one or two.
Your neighboring university advises
| intelligent child study. / know some
| principals who would gain appreciably
| by a keener study of their fellow
teachers, not to exclude even them
| selves.
The principal will be a better In
spector if he devotes a part of each
day to actual teaching. The assistants
should not allow all the inspecting and
the care of the school to fall on the
principal. EdCn SuOuIu dCCSpb re-
sponsibility for observing in the whole
freely suggest what seems to her i'm
provements and correct SO far as she
may without interference with others
any faults that meet her eyes.
mo teacher may live to himself
alone. not even the head of so-called
department. The whole school is
greater than any of its parts, and Its
highest interests are the sum of the
interests Of the several parts after an
adjustment of conflicting interests
has been secured. 1t is the province
of the principal to make these adj
justments. There should thus be in
every good school a distinct unity of
plan and principle. But within this
limitation each teacher should be left
free to produce adequate results by
any good method.
1T is well for the principal to hold
meetings of his teachers, both to
present his own views and to elicit
theirs by free discussion and confer
ence. Teachers meetings for the sake
of teachers meetings when within the
limit of a single schools teachers do
not appeal to me- Their resources for
the maintenance of interest are apt to
be meagre and they have not seemed
to me in general to be worth while
Another means of attaining desir-
able measure of unity is thorough
examination tests. Most such tests
throughout the year should be set by
the teacher who has had the pupils for
Some, however, should be
from a different - PURGE.
THE principal should visit other
schools. attend gatherings of teachers,
read books new and old, test claims
and observe the practical workings of
theories. 1t is a good thing when a
principal prepares himself to illustrate
in practice what he advocates II is
an equally good thing when a teacher
prepares herself to teach not only her
pupils. but IL need be, her principal,
IN improved method or the use Of a
new device. Neither worker should in
sist. however, upon the introduction of
a novelty against which the other can
bring well-founded reasons.
"The principal should support the
teacher against opposing pupils, not
by denying mistakes, but by holding
the pupil to a consideration of his own
mistakes and a refusal to allow him
while contumacious to discuss his
teachers acts or at any time to under
take her discipline. He should sup
port the teacher against aggrieved
parents; he should support the teacher
against the superintendent, II the su-
perintendent has not a fully-rounded
view of all the circumstances.
Principal and teacher should think
Of themselves as social equals. should
entertain each other as occasion Of
fers. should seize opportunities for
friendly converse when shop" is not
uppermost in thought"
Rev. w. T. Hutehins said in part:
ITO criticize our splendid High Schools
at all with the idea Of making them
better would seem like trying to gid
refined gold. But you expect some
thing. lam not here to make hys-
terical protest against what is popu-
larry understood as over-pressure in
our high schools. / should invite just
odium If ! arrayed myself against the
excellent and capable men and women
who are devOting character and talent
to the specific business Of perfecting
the organization and methods Of this
important deoartment Of our public
school system. There is over-pressure.
IF you pursue your investigation in
one direction you viii find in home
after home an alarming evidence of
nervous irritation and CT parental so
licitude for children whose overwOrked
nerves and impaired digestion are the
evident result Of the demands at
school. And doctors viii punctuate
their judgment Of this matter with !
frequent profanity. And now and then |
the complaint reaches an acute stage
and gets into the papers.