Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1906-10-29

everything and anything that is right
which will stimulate the action of the
brain. A child develops more by what
he does than by what you do for him.
Thank God that our sc~hoolteachers can
inspire their scholars into doing as well
as into receiving.
Training the Child.
l see the teacher training the prac-
teal child. | see him also training the
aesthetic child or the student of the
beautiful. | hear him saying to the
young student: Young man. there is
something more in life than planting
a cabbage patch, or hoeing corn. or
digging an oil well. There is some
thing more in life than in owning a
mortgage upon your neighbours farm
and squeezing him out of his property
in hard times. There is other litera-
ture in life than that found in the
stock columns of the daily newspapers.
There is something higher than the
rattle of the miser's gold" The true
teacher tries to lead his scholars into
the higher realms of the beautiful. He
inspires them with the harmonies of
nature, of sound and of color. He gets
the best pictures he can and hangs
them upon the school walls.
He tries to do for his class room what
Mary A. Livermore did for her schol-
ars when she was a teacher in Dux-
bury, Mass. She did not go into her
class room and say, "Now, children,
you must go to work and work hard
and have just rs miserable a time as
you can" Oh, no. She made play out
| of work. When she vas teaching bot
any she gathered the beautiful flowers
out of the fields and took them into the
class rooms. Then on certain Satur-
days she took her class out into the
woods to find the flowers and to study
them in their home retreats. Then, in
stead of studying the stars by books
alone, she would meet her, class on a
clear night, and together they would
roam through stellar worlds. Then, in
stead of making music a bore, she
formed her scholars. into singing
classes, and everand mon the teachers
and scholars would go off on picnics,
taking their games and their violins
along. DO you wonder that Mary A.
! Livermore worked her way into the
hearts of her scholars and inspired
them with the love of the beautiful?
Love Of the Beautiful.
While, on the other hand, have not al
of us had teachers of history or of Eng
lish literature or of oratory or of bot
any or of art so dead to their themes
that We never entered their classes un>
less it was with leaden feet? Even
when we. studied Goethe or Macaulay
or Ruskin we felt it was a drudgery,
because our teacher himself was stoHd
and unresponsive to the harmonies Of
the beautiful. Oh, the teacher who does
not inspire his people with a love for
the beautiful has lost half of his or her
mission! Some time ago 1 was in the
home Of a very intelligent lady. During
the conversation she said to me, my
little daughter has read nearly all the
standard works." SIS that so?" I an
swered. D you pay her for reading
those booksy' Never answered this
lady. THAT was the great mistake my
mother made. In order to get me to
read good books she used to pay me.
The result was unless 1 was paid money
l never read good literature. Years
after my mothers death l found out
my mistake. Then l commenced to
read good books for the joy that I got
out of them. l try to inspire my daugh-
ter to naturally seek the beautiful and
love the beautiful in literature because
l love the beautiful there" AS teachers
have you not a higher mission in life
than simply hammering the multiplied
ton table into your pupils minds? Do
you ever talk to them about the beauty
found in the curve of a rainbow or
fFabout the symmetrical blendings of the
leaves of a little violet or about the per-
feet design Of a snowflake?
But the Schoolteacher has still a
higher mission than that OF. examining
a students brain full of a few facts
and teaching him to love the aesthetic.
Art n nature did not make Athens a
city OF virtuous people. Some of the
most loathsome examples of immoral
and social RIGHTEOUSNESS We're prac-
ticed under the shadow of the Parthe-
non. Some of the greatest writers of
the ages walked the streets of Rome.
But Rome ia its day was what Sodom
Il GomOrrah were in their days, and
III modern times the most popular lover
OF the aesthetic who ever stepped upon
our shores was himself so stepped in
immortality that he was not only exiled
from all decent society, but was in
carcerated in a London Jail and passed
away despised of men to meet his God
and to render an account for his mis-
spent life. Thus. my friend, as a
teacher you have something more to do
than to teach your scholars to love the
books, and the trees, and the noun
.tains, and the blossoms, and the har-
vest fields.
Importance of Example.
How can a teacher lead his pupils
to be pure and true and noble and
good? In the first place, by giving them