The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-17
OF
 DIR. PULLEY Feature of Night Session
 of Teachers. SUBJECT "FADS IN EDUCATION" Superintendent Gunnels Delivered
 Fine Address. Night session Was Held in Cours street Church And The Great Audi-
 torIum Was Crowded to The Doors.

The evening session of the Alabama | Educational Association opened few | minutes after o'clock in the audi l torium of the Court Street Methoolst | Church, with President Harrison in the | chair. He introduced with few words | Hen. Harry C. Gunnels, State Superih- | tendent of Education who made an ex- l cellent address on the subject, Ala- bama's Educational Uplift." He was applauded at the conclusion or the aG- | dress and then introduced pr. Lincoln | Hulley, President of the John B. Stet- | son University, of Florida.
 ! Probably never has the teachers . | Alabama been treated to a more ent'- 1 taining discourse than was that or ] Hulley last night In spite of the un- l comfortable condition of the crowded | audience, some sitting and others standing, the speaker commanded the | unabated attention of every one | present His address was made up or humor. straight yet original. and with the philosophy which has already made his an enviable name in the list Of | Southern speakers.
 | Some of the stories told by pr. Hull ley. were taken seriously by some | auditors, but 1t was declared there was no intentional sting in any of | them
 At the end of pr. Hulley's speech, Chairman P w. Hodges, of the Execu- tive Committee of the Association, an- | nounced the time and meeting places of the several departmental sessions to | be held tomorrow. These are given | elsewhere in this paper.
 Resolution by Mir. Blaslngame.
 Then a resolution was offered by W. c. Blasingame. This resolution, which was referred to the committee on reso- I lat f...r hnI InkA follows; ''In order to supply students and workers in our educational history with reliable statistics and data concerning 1 libraries and library work in this State.
 Be it resolved, by the Alabama Educational Associa tion that the Ala bama Department of Education be respectfully urged to collect annually from all public institutions, public schools, academies and private schools, full and accurate statistics, concern- ing their libraries or the collections or books under their control with data also as.to extent of support methods of administration. had cared for, etc.
 Dr. HulIey Speaks.
 Tn opening his address, Dr. Hulley said he would probably surprise his hearers before he finished with his topic, the surprise to come with the manner of treatment of it. The topic was "Fads in Education" Naturally, the audience expected the word Pads" to be used by Dr. Hulley in a satirical sense. But not so. as he told his au- dience. He was there. he said. to say that it is to fads we owe a good many of the solid and well-founded reforms of the day in education.
 The speaker told of how several re- cent reforms in educational meth ods and advantages are traceable to the institution of what were termed origin ally fads. The instance of decorating the interior of school rooms was given by the speaker as showing how, from an innovation in this line, there sprang the wonderfully beneficial advantages of the study of art in the schools. 1 Then too, from original fads in making the school rooms attractive by i'm proVement in the structural makeup and otherwise led to the idea of beau tifying the grounds of the schools. The permanency of ground Improvements is now recognized, declared Dr. Hulley. It was once considered a fad far beyond the conventional, for a teacher in grammar to raise aloft some mate rial object to teach the definition of noun. Yet. said Dr. Hulley. from this practice, there has sprung the univer- sal practice of demonstrative and H. illustrative work in the art of teaching. The origin of teaching physiology and hygiene was also traced to faddish practices, according to the opinion of the speaker. Yet now in nearly all the States of the Union the teaching of this plan of education is enjoined by the departments of public instruc- tion or the laws of the States. Dr. Hulley scored the commercial | idea of a boys value as prevails in some quarters This commercial idea | has gone so far that when a youth rises to the school age his father says. T will keep him at home to work; he shall not go to school; I raised him myself; he belongs to me; therefore, l will get $S a week out of him rather than send him to school to spend money | for an education"
 Shame on this commercial idea" exclaimed Dr. Hulley. Shame on the man who thus reduces the worth of his son to dollars and cents" | The speaker, who is a graduate of Harvard, told of the numerous and | sundry schemes of poor students to get an education with no initial capital.
 It was told how, that in this way, it was clearly proven that the education a young man gets is of a certain de- gree according to the zeal with which he searches for the education.
 Speech of MT. Gunnels.
 Hon. H. c. Gunnels. State Superin-
 tendent of Education, in his address save OI the educational | enactments of the last Legislature and
 told of the great good that is to come
 from the near establishment of the
 county high schools.
 Like the tenor of President Harri-
 sons address in the afternoon yester-
 day Superintendent Gunnels devoted
 some of his time to deploring the fail
 ure of the Legislature to make some
 sort of provision for the practical su-
 pervsion of the rural schools of Ala
 bama. This subject seems to be up-
 permost in the councils of the Educa-
 tional Association and Is being dis
 cussed earnestly by the thinking mem
 bers of the body.
 Said MT. Gupnels on the topic:
 T cannot forbear, while having on
 my heart this spirit of what Alabama
 Is doing for education to feel a panE of regret that, our Legislature failed
 to pass some kind of a law providing
 for competent supervision in our rural
 schools. I have no fight to make
 against our present County Superin-
 tendents. They are creatures of a
 condition and are not responsible for
 the situation, but when you realize
 that the average salary of the County Superintendent in Alabama is $1,0O7
 and that by their own reports a major 1 ity of them give absolutely no super vision to the schools, and when you further realize that about 80 per cent of our teachers. who go out into the