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

supposed to relieve your mother. IL
was the pest of your life. In the first
place, inevitably the family would use
up ali the water you drew before going
to bed. Then your mother in the morn.
ing would call, Charley, / wish you
would bring me a pail of water Then
you would go to that pump and grasp
the iron handle and pump and pump
and pump, and the water would not
ZONE. There was no connection be-
tween the top and the bottom. At
last, in complete disgust, you would
have to take the pail and go clear out
to he barn n get some water and
pour it down the pipe before you could
get the connection with the well be-
low. Well, that pail of water you had
to carry from afar and pour down the
pipe is the symbol to me of the rudi-
ment of an education which the school
teacher is compelled to pour into the
brain of the children. Without these
rudiments the child will never be in
touch with the intellectual world.
To Make the Think.
But, having put the scholar in touch
with the intellectual world, the next
great duty of the schoolteacher is to
make the student think for himself and
do for himself. The cells of the brain
are Just the same as the muscles and
cells of the rest of the body. In order
to become developed and strong and
virile, in order to grasp the great prob
I~~.- - Y.c1 --l z1I-o %I4~1 a ~, ~1 +11A
brain must have exercise. 1t must
learn to be independent. 1t cannot be
carried around as a valetudinarian by a
scholastic nurse. Thus the second
great duty of the schOolteacher is to in
spire in the minds of his students the
realization hat they can do something.
"No truth is really our own" said
Ralph Waldo Emerson, until we dis
cover it for ourselves"
/ was lever more impressed with this
fact than when talking some time ago
with one of the members of my church
who is the principal at the Detention
home of Los Angeles. He said to me:
1.-THE greatest work of the teacher is to
inspire in his pupils confidence in them
selves. Now, in4our Detention home 1
have had this theory well tested. There
we have what is called the garbage pile
of the youths of this city. fla boy will
not study and seems to be an incOrrigi-
BILE he is sent to me. / inevitably find
him a doubter Of his own abilities.
When l can dissipate that doubt 1 can
always make something good out of the
boy. When a boy comes into our home
I say to him, What can you do, my
sonH Nothing he generally answers.
'Whatr 1 say. Nothing. Oh, yes; you
must know something's Nope he an
swers, nothing We'll, what do you
know about arithmetic?. Nothing: I
told you,' he again answers. Nothing,
Then 1 say, We'll, whatido you do for a
livingY Sell papers We'll. how do
you buy your papersT 4 gets them at
the Office for half a cent and sells them
for a penny Indeed 1 say. Then
howsdo you make change when you sell
those papers unless you know how to
count? With that the boys eyes will
begin to open, and he will begin to see
that making change is arithmetic and
buying papers is counting figures. And
thus 1 lead him on until he realizes that
he himself can count and do some
thing"
Not a Sponge.
The human brain should be some
thing more than a sponge. The brain
should be able to give out as well as
take in. The brain should be like a
mountain side. gushing forth with
brooks and springs, rather than a great
cavity or reservoir, capable of holding
a lot of water, which in time becomes
nothing more or less than a stagnant
pool. 1t is just at this point that
Friedrich Froebel, the great German
educator, has been able within the last
few years to absolutely revolutionize
the educational system of the world.
The gist Of his teachings is this: ITO
have found one-fourth of an answer to
a question by his own effort is of more
value and Importance to a child than
it is to half hear and half understand
that answer in the words of another
Thus we find the average schoolroom
for our children a far different place
from that we used to attend. We there
find the children playing games and
building blocks and working at car
penter benches and bending over kitch-
en- stoves and drawing pictures and
singing songs. They work with their
heads; they work with their, hands and
fingers. The schoolroom is a place
where our children are taught not only
theories, but probabilities. That is
true education.
And here let me state something d.
rectly TO the parents in reference to
this law. Every father and mother
ought to be the public school teachers
assistants. They ought to supplement
the work of the s%cchoolroom in the
home. How are they to do that? By
inspiring their children in every wav
possible to do something for them
selves. Buy them all the games they
are able to play. Checkers and domi-
nos and parcheesi and authors and
chess and croquet and golf and tennis