The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1908-03-04
LADY READS INTERESTING
PAPER AT THE MEETING
Mrs. W. H. Wye Gives Interesting Facts About the Training
of the Child and the Attitude of the Teacher in
Encouraging Study,

Will our eyes ClOSCu, VIC w AO'
notice the most obvious facts about
us. It is the function of education
to open these blind eyes and unstop
these deaf ears.
I remember of visiting a kinder
garten once, when the teacher asked
her class if they could tell her the
color of the sky. Not one knew.
She took them right out doors to
look. They had never stopped to
look before and their mothers had
been too busy to stop them and have
them look. Mothers cannot be
everywhere. Therefore, what an
excellent substitute is the teacher
No doubt many of you have seen
the picture of a very odd couple
sitting on the front door step of their
home, watching their first sunset.
They had gone through life with
their eyes closed.
The world of literature is more or
less divided into thinkers and seers.
Newton, opening his eyes,, sees the
planets revolve, and finds his fame.
Watt hears the movement of steam,
and finds his fortune. Millet copied
the colors of the sunset at the
moment when the reapers had their
heads bowed in silent prayer. They
say J. Hill is a dreamer, and the
world advocatds that we make more
dreamers.
One of our wisest teachers has
said, The greatest thing human
soul ever does in this world is to
see something and tell what he saw
in plain way"
The live teacher takes his class
to the rock, the river and the
trees. They study the flowers, the
grasses and the grains. He knows
something of geology, science and
history. Time should not be
counted wasted, spent listening to
the trees and the river or looking
at the stars and the sunset.
Van Dyke says: BE glad of life,
for it gives you a chance to love,
to work and to look up at the
stars. Live as much as possible in
Gods out-of-doors."
Much is being said just now in
all our papers and magazines about
introducing the study of different
trades in the public schools. There
seems to be a revival of the indus
trial, an ennobling of all vacations;
that all industry is honorable and
and all idleness is disgrace. That
no industry is drudgery that is
intelligently performed; that it is
better and higher to make table
intelligently than to preach a ser.
mon, write an editorial or teach
school mechanically. The end of
education is life; the object of life
is service and that is the best edu
cation which fits the pupil for the
best service he can render. His
first duty to society is to support
himself, and not become a burden
to others. His second service
is to aid in contributing to the live:
of others.
What surprised me most in the
argument of some of these leading
educational men was that it should
be left with the teacher to select thu
trade the pupil should study. I
occurred to me that this should b.
the parents duty. But after all
doesn't the teacher see him at work
at play, using his hands, his mind
equally as much as the parents? Th'
teacher may rightly be called tn
scientific investigator of the child
nature, the observer of the child
mind. The teacher is, of course
dealing with childhood, the mothe
with Dick-hood or Mary-hood. I
was from the parental point of view
that the ancient sage wrote tn,
proverb, "Train up the child in tn
way he should go''-in other words
prepare him for the kind of life, TO
which he is best fitted; but it ha
been said a mother knows so muc
about her child that her testimon
is scientifically worthless, for i
everything her child does she see
something he, and not anothe
child, has done before, and sh