Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1909-07-03
POOR TEACHING
sPO|LS CHILDREN
Some So Unscientific and Spirit
less That it Would Make Most
Any Child Delinquent.
NATURAL ORDER is IGNORED.
One Trouble is Putting Pupils TO Work
On Studies They Are Not Mature
Enough to Comprehend.

Denver. July 3.-The National Coun.
Gil of Education, being the first active
gathering preliminary to the Nationa
Educational association, hieh begins
It's sessions Monday, held its first SEES,
sion at $3.50 O'clock this morning. l,
was opened with short statement by
Joseph swain, president Of Swarthmore
college. Swarthmore, Pa, president OF
the council. Al
The principal discussion was on the
report of the committee on provision for
exceptional children in the public
schools An introductory statement
was made by James II. Van Sickle, SUI
perintendent of schools of Baltimore.
sPIRITLEss, TEACHERS.
"Spiritless Teachers was the subject
of l. G. MCNEIL, superintendent of
schools of Memphis, Tenn, Who spoke
in the general discussion that followed.
His address in part was as follows:
Some teaching is so unscientific and
consequently so spiritless that 1t would
make most any: child delinquent, said
j. C. McNcill, superintendent of schools,
Memphis, Tenn. in an address today
before the council of education of the
National Educational association. Pay
ents and teachers often make delin-
qrents of children by falling to observe
the fundamental things and processes
incident to growth and development
said the speaker. Permanent aversion
to school is the legitimate result of
putting children at work on studies
they are not mature enough to compre-
hend.'
The speaker condemned the attempt
to put high school branches into gram
mar grades or intermediate studies in
to primary grades. and said that edu
cation agencies must look. continuously
to the care of the physical and emo
tiona. as well; as to the intellectual
side of education
are unstable. cratic. shiftless and in
efficient. These elements corrupt
morals, lead to irrational modes OF
living, and swell the hosts of the
and criminal who become the.
real burdens of society. Unless delin-
duent classes have the benfits of the
kind of education which is adapted to
their peculiar needs. they grow up
us and recruit the army on
people who never fit anywhere. TheM:
fill the poorhouses. the prisons, the
asylums and the Sums. They produce;
and reproduce their kind and bring
about feeling of social unrest. which
is growing in this complex age.
"a failure on the part of the home
to exercise even and forceful disci-t
pine IS a moral sin which has put the
curse of Cain and the stamp of Satan,
upon many a:spronising boy or girl.
when we5realize the paneful work.
ing of uneven discipline growing out
of weak willed, inefficient parental
government we stand in the presence
of great problem. How can we sim-
press fathers and mother and teachers
with the idea that weak and vaccillat-
ing governments of children blasts their
lives and makes them candidates for
the ranks of the ignoble9"
James Al. Greenwood. superinten-
dent OF. schools of Kansas City, No..
Carroll q. Pearson. superintendent! OF
the Milwaukee, schools. F.tC. Bruner.
Chicago; Stratton D. Brooks. Boston.
and Luther Halsey Gulick of New
York also were speakers.
E1r. Greenwood read the report of
the committee on moral training in
the public schools in which the study
by the teacher&of the environment of
the pupil was urged