Daily Kennebec journal., 1902-03-25
Death of a Great Teacher.

Col. Francis w. Parker whose death
occurred recently at Pass Christian,
Miss, where ne had gone for his health,
was bold adventurer into the field of
teaching on the basis of psychology, at
a time when the public schools had not
vet felt in any degree the true relation
ship of education and the nature of the
child, and the formulated systems of
the half-Century since Horace Mann
had grown into routine of fetish wor-
Shipping, in which the system and the
school and the teacher had quite over
slaughed in consideration the interests
of the child. Colonel Parker's calling
was teaching, and he began it when he
was II years old; and while it was in
terrupted by four years of service in
the war for the Union, to that calling
he returned Immediately after coming
hcme, and it had been his life work. 1t
was his good fortune to be dissatisfied
with the limitations of his work; and to
get the psychologist training which he
could not find here, he went to Ger
many, and in Berlin university studied
three years those scientific bases of
education which no other country
teaches so thoroughly or applies more
partially. Rousseau in his Emile"
Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, he found
were the true teachers of the teachers,
and while the scientific psychology OF
the present day is tending to over-re-
finement and the creation of another
routine as dangerous to healthy teach
ing as the old, the principles of Nature
remain immensely vigorous, and were
applied by Colonel Parker with great
effect His innovations became famous
as 1.-The Quincy Methods, and led to
his subsequent work, for short time in
Boston, then as principal of the
Chicago normal school, and he had
within three years become the head of
the school of education, part of the
Chicago university. His principles are
at the root of the modern ideas of
teaching, since he had been convicted of
the truth that every age owes a su-
preme duty to it's children, and that
education fails of it's right purpose un-
less it tends to develop the boy and
girl into living relations with the world
and their fellows in the world-in short,
into good citizenship. And the meth
ods must be in accord with the nature
of the mind, wherefore learning Of any
sort must be acquired as the earliest
adaptations of the child to his environ
ment are acquired. such as motion,
speech and all intelligence; the child is
to learn to do by doing" and not by
round about methods of doing some
thing else first.
Francis Wayland Parker was born in
the village of Piscataquog, Bedford, N.
H., October 8, 1887, and was thus in his
65th year. He came of old New Eng
land stock on both sides of the house,
and had ancestors in the colonial and
Revolutionary wars; his grandfather,
William Parker, was drummer boy at
Bunker Hill under Stark; great
great-grandfather. Maj. John Goffe,
was a colonial officer and taught tactics
to Stark and Sullivan; a great-grand-
father was a classmate of John Han
cock at Harvard College, and his uncle,
John Rand. was a portrait painter of
some note. But the boy Francis could
not go to college, though he was hungry
for learning; at seven years old he was
bound out for five years on a farm, at
tending school eight or nine weeks
every winter. After his period of SER
vice was over he left the farm, and
with little money, and doing work to
exc it out, went to the academy at Mt.
Vernon. and then to the Hopkinton
Academy; but before he was II, in the
winter of 1S54-5, he began school teach
ing, and in 1861 had been for two years
| principal of high school in Illinois.
He left this place to go home and enlist
in the 4th New Hampshire regiment.
His service was on the Atlantic coast
for the first three years, when the regi-
ment came North and Joined Grants
( forces in the operations around Peters,
burg. He was severely wounded, and
on his furlough after his discharge from
hospital, he married Phebe H. Hall Of
Bennington. N. H. RejOining his regi-
ment he was made lieutenant-co colonel;
he had short period in a rebel prison
and was mustered out with his regi-
ment in August, 1865, being brevet
colonel. He resumed his teaching, was
principal of North Manchester gram
mar school, and three years later went
to Dayton. o., where in 1871 his wife
died, and he went to Europe to study
the fundamentals of his profession; and
| the influences of that wise and vigorous
master. Diesterweg, derived from his
personal lessons from disciple of Dies
terweg, gave to Colonel Parker the very
thing he needed. He returned in 1875,
full of revolutionary ideas, so far as the
teaching Of the day was concerned,
but of evolutionary ideas of his future
work. At that time Quincy had a re-
markable school committee-such as
every town ought to have, but few OBJ
tain. Charles Francis Adams was the
chairman. and he was fellow-soldier
Of Parker, and thus it came about that
he was engaged to vitalize the dead
schools of the town. His success need
be no more than alluded to, for it was
soon recognized that new force was at
work in these schools, and the results
were quickly apparent. They were re-
ceived with incredulity and severity in
Boston; yet in five years Colonel Parker
was invited to Boston to become
supervisor of schools. His experience
there taught him that with a force OF