Los Angeles herald., 1907-12-22
DICKENS WAS
THEGREA
OFEDUCATORS
]. L. HUGHES PAYS TRIBUTE
TO NOVELIST
SESSIONS OF TEAcHERs' iNsTI-
TUTE> COME TO AN END
Resolutions Favoring instruction on
international Topics and Adverse
to Secret Societies Are
Adopted

Yesterday noon marked the closing
OF the most successful session ever
held by the Teachers Institute of Los
Angeles city and Los Angeles county.
including the Southern California
Teachers association.
The sessions of the entire week were
full of educational themes and adj
vanced theories for the good of the
children to be taught. The whole sys-
tenn of education was exemplified In
clear, distinct methods indicating the
vast improvement over the condition of
the schools less than fifty years ago.
Inspector James L. Hughes of To-
ronto, Canada, made the closing adj
dress of the sessions on the title of his
book, Dickens as an Educator" He
said In part:
"Dickens was the greatest educa-
tional student that ever lived in Eng
land; not a mere critic of false sys-
TENS of teaching and training, but a
great constructive educator, He stud
led the kindergarten more thorough
1y than any other Englishman. ne
was the first great leader to advocate
free national schools and of normal
schools for the training of teachers. He
criticised such private schools as those
of Creakle and Soueens for little boys.
and of Mrs. Wackles for little girls. and
of Miss Monflathers for young ladies to
show that the private schools of Eng
land were not only treating children
cruelty but utterly failing to give them
proper education.
"He advocated the teaching of the
blind and deaf, and the defective chill
dren before any other Englishman be-
lieved it possible to educate them He
wrote THE Cricket on the Hearth and
DIR. Marigold' in the interest Of the
education of the blind and the deaf.
He advocated the teaching of music
and art and manual training in the
schools. He was lover of children
and leader in the reforms of the last
fifty years that have been made in all
departments of education.
Wrote of Schools
.'He introduced twenty-eight schools
in his writings to criticise wrong ideals
and practices and to. reveal higher and
better ideals.
Dickens criticises fourteen types of
coercion in his books from the cruel
types of physical punishment in such
schools as those of Squeers and Creakle
and in the homes of the Mundstones
and the Gayerys to the placid sweet
willed coercion of Mrs. Crisporkle.
Mrs. Crisporkle told one of her friends
that she was glad her wards from
India, young man and young wo-
man. had decided to accept her views
in regard to their education because
they would have had to do SO whether
they liked it or not.
dickens meant to teach that the
sweet-willed coercion of dear old Mrs
Crisporkle, kind though she meant to
be, was just as blighting an evil as
the coercion of Squeers and Creakle,
because it interfered quite as much
with the development of the selfhood
of the child.
Regarding coercion we shudder at
the records of the way children were
treated fifty years ago. Men and wo-
men fifty years hence will be more
shocked at the way in which we still
treat the children than we are at the
brutality of Squeers. Most of us when
we read about Squeers say am so
glad am not like Squeers.' What we