The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-13

things for public school superintend-
 ents to insist on. according to Cover
 nor Simeon E. Baldwin, are: Q) that
 school teachers should speak and
 write good English; @ That they
 should not try to teach too many
 things: but rather teach thoroughly a
 few things, and (3l that teachers
 should avoid laying too much stress on final examinations.
 1 Governor Baldwin spoke, today to
 the Connecticut Association of Public
 School Superintendents, in 10th annu-
 al convention here, the subject
 The Things to Insist On" He said:
 The practical working of the sys-
 tenn of public education, which we
 have in Connecticut depends largely. and think I may say mainly. on you whom 1 am addressing.
 1 The State Board of Education may ! make rules and issue orders; but rules and orders do not execute themselves.
 1t is the middleman who really domi-
 mates. so far as the trading public are concerned. the course of trade. It is the middleman who really dominates
 so far as the school children are con- cerned. the course of local instruction. | They get what their teachers can give [ them The teachers give them, prac- I tically what you emphasize and in- sistEon.
 The laws of Connecticut have made | the Governor the chairman ex-officio of the State Board of Education. Whether he has had any experience as teacher or not; whether he has as made any real study of system Of public instruction or not; he Is the head of the organization which has the authority to direct for Connecticut 1 what public instruction shall be. 1 The General Assembly have made him its head for some reason. What | reason? Doubtless in part at least, because he comes from the outside, and may fairly be taken to represent ! the general sentiment of the people as to how they wish their educational | system administered. He is an out ! slider, and therefore can view the sub Eject of public education, as a whole, and on its merits. better in some re- spects than if he were specially fami- liar with what the system is and how 1t has grown up.
 Representing presumably, the gen. ! eral sentiments of the people, he i comes uninfluenced by personal pre- | judices. based on long habit, in fa- vor of this way of doing things, or l that.
 It so happens in my case. that have made some examinations as a | student of comparative law, of educa- ! tional systems in other countries as we'll as this. and further that I have had myself a long and active experi- ence as a teacher. For more than 40 years I have taught law, and in some measure. political science. in Yale University. I shall not. therefore, keep to mere sconventionalities of congratulation and encouragement on this occasion. I want to leave with you, if@sI Fcan, some word that may be worth your recollection in doing your everyday : duty as agents of the State.
 What are the things that. in deal- . ing with the teachers under supervi- sion, you ought to insist on?
 One is that, in the case of the | English language, they shall be ex- !. emplars, as we'll as instructors. 1t seems indeed to me more im- portant that they should set a good ! example than that they should give ] good, technical instruction in gram mar or composition.
 The one common agency and tool ! Of national life is the national lan- ! guage. Other things being equal, the child who can use that tool best, will and he will enjoy most.
 He may enter school under the handicap of bad example in an iliit- crate family. His father and mother use bad English: his playmates do; he drank it in with his mothers milk. If he finds teachers at school who use bad English. his case becomes almost hopeless. The fountain is poisoned at its source.
 heard one of your number, not long ago. use the phrase, T felt like ! knew better" There have been pro- fessional teachers in Connecticut who could say, He done it. I dare say you have often heard from some such: 'It aint so,'' or He don't" or "I says" If you detect any such vulgar isms in the speech of a teacher under your supervision, give him a kindly hint dt will of course be privately and a fair opportunity to get rid of his habit. If he fails to do so. he fails. or she fails, to be of further use as a teacher of children, and ought to go- I have known such a man en- p1oyed notwithstanding all his defi- cits, to teach college students. I do not say that 1t was not justified, for he had rare gift of observation and expressions: but such students had their vocabularies already formed The child is acquiring his, day by day.
 The second thing I would insist on is that the teachers aim should steadily be- non multa, Sed multum The temptation of every teacher of classes at all advanced is to live in his own world: to view things from his own viewpoint Instead of that, W II and his pupils. They are very differ ent worlds. By the immature mind facts are seized without due appre- ciation of their relations. and there fore of their meaning. Half of them are soon forgotten: the rest stand un- arranged and confused together, like furniture in a storage warehouse. The teacher cannot assume that the ac- quisitions of one term Or one month are remembered the next. What was learned without being appreciated, and co-ordinated with previous acquisi- tions Is never effectively recollected.
 To recollect, one must first have collected. and there is no useful col lection of facts unless they are in some measure co-ordinated.
 A teacher then must resist the ten dency to teach over the heads of his class; to teach them especially what Interests his own mind. rather than what is wanted to fill up theirs. When a teacher receives a class, trained by others to a certain point of study, he must not assume that the main body of them really know what they have been taught
 If is his business to find out how much they know, and to fill the gaps.
 Tn Moliere's Bourgeois Gentil- homme" you may recollect that he points for us a plain, unlettered man who suddenly becomes rich. He laud- ably resolves to get an education. goes to Paris. and engages private masters His knowledge of French is small; of