The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1905-05-19
TEACHERS !. :.
ASSOCIATION
Meeting at Souris was one
of the Best Ever Held in
the County. = Prof. Ken
nedy's Lecture a Feature.
BY Miss M. NJ. Carey.

BY Miss M. NJ. Carey.
Friday morning found a goodly
number of teachers from various parts
of the county assembled in the new
school building of which the Souris
teachers are justly proud. This
building is of brick.e with all the
modern improvements. and is neat
and attractive in it's appearance
The work of the pupils in several sub
jects was inspected, and favorable
comments made regarding it's merit
Reading from a literary standpoint
was we'll handled by Miss Candee of
the Bottineau school, She said the
value of literature in common schools
should be magnified as never before
A large percent leave school at the end
of the eighth grade work, and the best
thing we can give them is taste for
good reading. Given this and an op-
portunity for its qualification, we
furnish safeguards against many and
prevalent temptations. History fur
nishes material for supplementary
work, call in biography and we open
a vista that should cure a healthy
m ind Of it's interest in Jesse James.
An occasional mother = not father -
superintends her boys reading. Many
think grammar grade pupils too
young to appreciate really good litera-
ture -; -t ~ a.
Supt Christensen presented the Edu
ca+ional Needs of the County. He
emphasized the scarcity of teachers,
and the necessity Of securing supply
from other states,. This he stated
was in many cases unsatisfactory, as
being in sense transient residents,
they failed to identify themselves
with the work and its progress as
those of our own number would more
naturally do. The newness of the
country was another drawback to our
obtaining an equal standing from an
educational standpoint with the older
settled states. More recognition of
high school work in, the granting Of
teachers certifcatestwas another ne
cessity mentioned.
The afternoon session opened with
a vocal solo by Miss Warner, and
Miss Hazel Lackey favored the audi
ence with instrumental music, after
which the question, "Resolved that a
system of text books prepared by the
state superintendent would be more
beneficial to our common schools
than that of our present system, was
announced as the subject for debate.
F. M. Arne of the Omemee school
opened the debate. He maintained that
the course of study cannot be success
fully or properly followed. without
the text books are uniform throughout
the state. and prepared to meet its
requirements. The change of locality
of many children in our state, was
urged as valid reason for uniform
ity, on account of financial reasons as
we'll as educational progress. He re-
ferred to uniformity in nature, the
stars in their courses. etc. He was
followed by s. w. Bynum, principal
Of the Westhope school in favor of the
negative. Mr.. Bynum quoted largely
from prominent educators in. different
states having uniform system of text
books, showing that such system
was detrimental, and resulted in a
poorer set of books. He called atten-
tion to the fact, that the way the
question was stated, that the state
superintendent must not only prepare
a system Of text books, but that he
must also publish said text books, and
is liable to prosecution for infringe
ment of copyright the same as any
other publishing company.
California is the only state fur
nishing their own text books. J. G.
Miller was the next speaker for the
affirmative. He supported the argu-
ment advanced by his colleague. Con-
(0uu0u OAdI UAO HuOoVAO4 uAu S4Ok W.
quire the state superintendent to pub
lish the text books. only prepare or ar :
range for uniform system. and that
his officer was better fitted to make a
proper selection, than the ordinary
school board was, said that the oppo-
sition first claimed that it would in
crease the cost, and later that it
would not. He said cheapness should.
be considered, but not at the expense
OF usefulness
Lee 3. Arne was the next speaker
for the negative. He took up the
grammatical construction Of the ques-
tion, and arrived at the same conclu-
sion regarding its meaning as his col
league had previously done. He
quoted largely from officials Of differ
emit states where uniformity had been
wholly Or partially adopted, and had
proved unsatisfactory. Referring to
z