Omaha daily bee., 1915-12-08
Little Red School House
and Its Curriculum

| that showed that they liked it. To miss a
word in the spelling class made one feel
and look ridiculous. We looked forward
to the exercise with impatient enthusi-
asm i misspelled the word "flaccid.
The memory of it is just as vivid TO me
now as the experience of it was keen
| then.
| / became real hero one day because I
floored the rest of the class by spelling
correctly the word ''sevennight.' which
the spelling book pronounced "sennet."
| The others did not recognize the word
| as it was given out and made all kinds
of bad work with it. All of that occurred
more than fifty years ago. The vivid
recollection l have of II shows what a
luxury there is in learning to spell If the
teacher knows how to manage the mat
ter. and she was neither a college nor a
normal school graduate.
But in our school IL spelling was Joy
mental arithemtic was pure bliss. The
textbook we used had a hundred and
more miscellaneous examples at the end
Most of the class knew them by heart,
and they were not easy questions either
One of them ran something like this:
The head of a fish was three inches long;
its tail half as long as its body plus one
third the length of it's head. and its body
two-thirds the length of something else.
have forgotten what What was the
length of the fish? That gives little
idea of the style of the questions, and
the members of the class knew them so
well that the instant the teacher COM
menced to put one to us half a dozen
hands would go up, indicating the desire
to take the problem and solve ii.
| f,,lI
kind of glad rush. Then we had pieces
to speak on defamation day. Mr. Taft
alluded to that These pieces were ex-
tracts from the speeches of such men as
Webster, Hamilton, jefferson. parts Of
/ Washingtons farewell address. This put
! us in touch with the great masters OF
English and the great patriots OF our
, country and served TO initiate us into
oratory and patriotic citizenship.
These were great schools, utterly void
OF red tape and innocent as a straight
line of all elaborateness and circumlocu-
tion. Going to school was as simple an
affair as getting up I'm the morning. II
Mr., Taft had a similar experience when
he was a boy. as he apparently had IL
is not strange that he could talk feeingly
4 to the New York Teachers association
Z at Rochester about the simplicity and the
charm OF the little red schoolhouse.
s The schoolroom was pervaded by an
. atmosphere Of cheerfulness. There were
Z no irksome restraints. We were moi
fastened to our seats and could get uI
= and turn around without the danger Of
t being marked down for IT, We were no
s supposed TO whisper, but IL we did anC
did it so on the quiet as not 10 max,
! disturbance, we did not feel that we ha,
= committed an indictable offense.
n Penology had made such strides tina
II now even prison inmates are allowed {,
n talk with one another. at least in SIM
9, Sing. A teacher that cannot make
v schoolroom happy place lacks one o
a the essential qualifications of a peda
y gogue. believe that one reason why IN
y mental food administered by the teache
e, so painfully disagrees with the system o
the pupil is the state OF depression tina
ly the pupil is in while the nourishment /
1r being given.
n The principle applies in intellectual al
- fairs exactly as in physical. The min
~ is I'm such matters a great deal like IN
ly stomach. Digestion Is promoted b
al cheerfulness An hilarious dining ROOF
never induces indigestion. These az
n. matters needing to be looked after. TT
ne science OF education, particularly IN n
30 case Of young pupils. Is a complicate
one. Badly ventilated schOOlro0ms an
uI teachers who are dolefully conscious
ae the weary seriousness OF their work con
Iis bine TO produce a dyspeptic order
q. scholarship. God bless 20 Us the memoi
of our little red schoolhouse!