The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-04-03
Moorhead Department
NORMAL SCHOOL
PEOPLE IN PRINT
POTENT SUBJECTS DISCUSSED
BY MEMBERS or THE FACULTY
OF THE MooRHEAp lNsTiTU-
TIoN-RuRAL LIFE, HINTS ON
MUSIC AND READING.

.....
The new volume of the proceedings
of the Minnesota Educational associa-
ton is just at hand. It contains ar
ticles by G.. A. Ballard and ]. Harold
Powers, both Of the normal school
faculty. The February number Of
The Elementary School Teacher, pup
lished at Chicago also contains an ar
ticle bysa member of the normal school
faculty, Miss Myrtle Sholty.
Mr.. Ballard's article, which is an
address he presented before the county
superintendent's session of the state
association is entitled Modern Tendon
cies in Rural Life. In it he reviews
the history of agricultural improve
ment from the earliest times to u
own day. Even the Chinese, it seems,
1000 years before the christian era, a
an intelligent idea of the importance
of agriculture; for thus spoke one OF
their emperors, Crime begins in pow
erty, poverty in INSURGENCY of food,
and insuficiency of food in neglect of
agriculture" Tracing the history of
! d6t uOMAA AAAONSAA SAS
| to our own land. Mr.. Ballard showed
the great incentive given to the SCI
ence through inventions, from the iron
plow Of 1925 to the complex utilities
Of today. Among other things, he
says: IF I ave read the past cor
rectly and have pointed out the path OF
the present trend, then h coming
| generation of farmers must exceed the
present in knowledge, as / believe the
present exceeds the past. Purely
natural laws will bring this about, but
the process will be slow and often
merciless. Drifting masses OF popuia-
ton in a nation, like shifting masses
of ballast in a vessel, are dangerous
and should be brought to rest, If pos
sible, without waiting for h tedious
course of nature. In the wheat rails
ing regions of the northwest, many adj
ditional laborers are necessary for a
short time for harvesting and thresh-
ing the crop, and thousands of men,
many of them mediocre or inefficient,
loaf into the region only to be scat
tered at the end Of the busy season.
Such a condition exists in other Sec
tons of the country where special
CEOpS are Th1GSu. 1ItS COlIOAlAoAE 40 ALOb
conducive to rural life of the highest
standard; and slowly but steadily is
the trend toward the more even dis
tribution of labor through the year, to
the end that farm laborers shall re-
ceive regular and steady employment"
Referring finally to the utilities,
such as the telephone, heating and
lighting systems, and daily mail, that
are making the rural homes as pleas
ant as the city home, Mr.. Ballard con-
cludes with the significant sentence:
THE ignorant pessimist of the past
has given place to the pregnant opti-
mism of the future" s,.a t.'+
Hint to Music Teachers.
In Mr.. Powers article, which was
delivered as the presidents address
before the music section of the state
association, he calls attention to the
strenuous competition that is sure to
follow the crowding of he new curri-
culum, and calls upon music teachers
to make their work SO vital and effie-
lent that music shall secure and retain
lis rightful place not only m the
grades of the ommon school, bu in
the high schools as well, where it is
often neglected. "Of the 206 towns
maintaining high schools only seventy
eight offer music" is his comment on
the high school situation of Mime
sofa. I'VE teach music through toll
and tribulation for eight years, drop it
four, except for chorus, and then won
der why the normal graduates who get
twelve weeks of music do not come out
as grade teachers with a better work
ing knowledge Of music" He advo-
Gates the preparation, by music teach
ers belonging to the association, of a
course of study adapted to practical
high school teaching. He also sug-
gests that women's clubs be enlisted
in the movement to further the intro
duction of effective music instruction
in the schools. Finally he impresses
the need of intelligent cooperation on
the part of all teachers of music to
put this subject of popular culture in
it's rightful position in the curricu-
lum.
Reading Vocabulary.
Miss Sholty's article, The Reading
Vocabulary of Children, is based on
a valuable piece of individual research
which she did at Chicago university
last summer. 1t was designed to sug-
gest the relative value of different
methods of teaching primary reading,
the initiative, word, sentence and pho
netic methods. It's method of research,
as we'll as it's conclusions, are vitality
interesting to all primary teachers,
and indeed to teachers in general who
have the professional spirit of inquiry.
In summing up her article, Miss
Sholty y mo conclusions can be
drawn from this limited study, yet it
seems to me it would be worth while
for primary teachers to study the read
ing of the pupils to find out whether
phonics makes more careful as well
as independent readers. or whether 1t
leads children to see words in parts
and thereby makes slower readers"
Referring TO the fact that two of the
children tested read a large part Of
the words in syllables, but usually read
more slowly on this account, she lays,
we might conclude that it is not
enough to teach children how to build
up words by means of phonics, but
that these words should also have suf-
acient drill to enable the children to
recognize them at sight"
FERGUS FALLS ELECTION.
\ - WaaE ..4EHLA go q. II. 49, AsxElS NARstt