Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-06-22
Reading as An Art

Dear Household Friends: AS L did nov
finish my subject on the way children are
taught reading. I will finish this week
If have made myself clear. you see that
l think TO teach reading successfully, we
need to teach thoroughly what we dc
teach and to arouse a desire to read by
placing before the pupils the beautiful.
interesting and valuable things we find
In reading.
I, today, rejoice in the fact that in my
childhood l was fortunate in having q
reading father and mother who took a
delight in having me read to them, ever
If IT had to be between worktime. l was
taught by a teacher who was on fire with
love for good books and knew how to
keep me awake at night thinking Of
what he could tell me in my reading
class.
These two facts caused me to want to
learn to read. / strove to know what
the lesson meant. would talk to fathe~
and mother at night about it, l got In the
habit of reading at night and they would
have to send me to bed. If we VIII
teach reading thoroughly and beget in the
minds of our pupils love of it, we shall
in my humble judgment, do them the
greatest possible service. Reading, in its
fullest sense, is the most important at
tainment they can make in school. 1t is
the one attainment that can be made
everlastingly useful.
How sad then the thought that II should
be neglected. thrown aside before it is
mastered! How mistaken the idea that
SO much time and labor should be devo-
ted TO the caring of things in school that
are of no practical use through life. We
extract roots, solve problems, addle our
brains over theories and do thousand
other things in school that have no pos
sible bearing upon the lives Of the great
masses Of pupils. Just such facts as
these caused Herbert Spencer to say in
his work on education that the men
who had revolutionized the conditions of
the globe had learned in hooks and cor
ners after leaving school, those things
that enabled them to give us the press.
the loom, the engine, the steamboat, the
railway, the telegraph, the telephone,
electricity.
Now we are waking UP and essaying an
education that shall be good for the toll
err in life's vocations. am for the change.
am for industrial education.
/ would substitute mora geography,
more English, more agriculture and the
science Of plants, more physiology and
the laws OF health and life.
/ would have the children study and
read the best thoughts of the best men
and women that ever lived, and study
them and discuss them and leave the mys-
teries of the cube root to idlers.
I think 1 hear someone calling me q
crank or an old-timer, but just wait
till I have finished my say. 1 believe in
the words advance" onward and up
ward" believe in the Bible and reading
II in school, too.
/ believe in reading as an art, little
less than divine, for by 1t ! may fathom
the mysteries, learn the truths and see
the visions that are offered to my hun
cry soul.
In conclusion, let US read, let US teach
reading to our pupils. let us inspire then,
with an Unsuitable desire for its delights
its value. its necessity. Tnis done, l be-
| lieve the peace, the happiness, the vel
/ fare of our future is secure.
MRS L. V VISAYE.