Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1902-04-16
OUR INSTITUTE.
A Paper Read Before tie Barber County
Teachers Association at Kiowa,.
April 5th, 1902, By Prof. Ira
Stout, Of the HazcIt0n
Schools.

fuonSneo oy Request
The need of special preparation in
every department of organized work
is today recognized by all. Born of
this recognition, we have post grad
uate courses in medicine and other
professions. Born of this, same recog-
milton, we have in our professional
school work, the Summer school, the
Post graduate course in colleges, and
the Summer Institute for teachers of
the public school.
The need of such summer school
training should be apparent to every
thinking man and woman.
In this busy, restless, work-a-day
world, "We must upward still, and
onward who would keep abreast of
truth" There is no such thing as
''Holding our own." Standing wa
ters stagnate, and stagnation means
death. We cannot stand still. We
must either advance or -retrograde,
and the retrograding teacher is very
soon to fall by the wayside and his
place is to be filed by raw recruit.
We must grow; grow in breadth
and depth of mind and knowledge;
grow in our conception of child life;
grow in love of childhood; grow in
the spirit of the work; grow in the
spirit Of the Master.
Growth is the natural law of life,
and if we fail to grow we are practi-
cally dead to the demands of our pro-
feSsion. The teacher who has ceased
to grow is already dead. The teacher
who lacks spirit, who possesses but
little individuality, has probably been
dead for some time.
Mere scholarship alone will not
make teacher. To this must be
added true character and professional
spirit, born of desire to be the best
teacher possible, and renewed and
strengthened by careful and con-
Stant study of the fundamental prin-
cipleS of education. The teacher who
is not always awake to catch the spir-
it and see the merits and defects of
each new thought and method in edu-
cation has ceased to keep pace with
the spirit of progress.
But, says one, with our crowded
curriculum and the many demands
upon our time and strength, we can
not give to the study of principles
and methods the time necessary for
their mastery.
Herein should lie the province of
the Teachers Institute. It has it's de-
fects as do all human devices.
That much valuable time is wasted
every year under our present meth
DDS of conducting Institutes can not
be questioned. The primary object
for which our Institute fund is pro-
vided is absolutely defeated.
would gladly hail the adoption of
the plan proposed by Prof. E. A.
Shepardson, of Medicine Lodge. This
plan met with favor and approval
among the teachers in the last Barber
County Institute and also in other
counties in this portion of the state.
The plan provides for regular
grading of the Institute work
through series of three terms and in
sists upon young teachers taking up
the grades in their order, and COM
pleting the work of one grade before
entering upon the next.
The Institute period should be
heightened, as it is impossible to COW
er the work in satisfactory manner,
owing to the lack of academic work
on the part Of many young teachers
before entering the Institute.
s'In our Institutes at present we are
| compelled to spend all of the time in
giving academic instruction of an infs-
rior type. As one member Of the state
board expressed it, 'We only touch the
high places The Institute should not
be, primarily, place to secure an aca-
demic education. No one should be ad-
mitted to Institute work who does not
possess at least a common school diplo-
ma or its equivalent. The sphere of the
Institute should be to develop methods
and ability to teach.
Methods should be paramount in the