Page images
PDF
EPUB

false view of things is encouraged by parents, whose blind pride is flattered by this early indication of what they are pleased to call "smartness," a "lofty spirit and a love of liberty," and whose partiality for their darlings will not permit them to reflect upon the unhappy consequences of allowing their children to grow up under the despotic rule of self will and egotism.

Oh parents, guardians! Could you but realize the immense amount of sor row and trouble you are thus heaping on your own heads by your indulgence, you would not object in the least, to having firmly impressed upon the minds the minds of your childred the great essentials of life-obedience, order and system. A spirit of obedience to law and submission to lawful authority, is equally promotive of social order and individual happiness; hence, the imperative duty of parents, guardians and teachers, to instill into the minds of those under their care, correct views of the duties growing out of the relations they sustain to each other as social beings, and as citizens of the same great republic. What the boy is, such will be, to a great extent, the man and the citizen. The obedient child and scholar, will be the kind and faithful friend and the law abiding and order loving citizen; while the disobedient child in the familythe rebel in the school, will become the tyrant of his neighborhood; the bane of his parents; the outlaw of his country; the inmate of those large and expensive edifices—penitentiaries, jails, etc., which have been spread broad-cast throughout our land, for the protection of the good against the assaults of the lawless vagabond, once the indulged, petted, and smart child.

No calm, reflecting mind can view, without dread, the growing spirit of impertinent disregard for the feelings and rights of others and the rapid strides of that false, blind independence which assumes the right to set at defiance all authority which interferes with the gratification of self, or selfish interests. What family is there in the country at this present day, which has not felt the sad and dreadful effects of the demon of insubordination-disobedience,-born and nurtured in the very lap of Liberty, which is now shaking the foundation of our National Government and Laws to the very center? Not only has it lit the fire of discontent among our Southern States, but it has fanned it into a flame of rebellion which has already required and may still require rivers of blood to extinguish. *

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

The present is a favorable time, while the fire of living patriotism glows in every breast to make, by wise and well directed efforts, deep and lasting impressions for good, which shall live long after our brave heroes of the battle field are forgotten.-Maryland School Journal.

LACK OF HOME DISCIPLINE.

Granted that some vicious boys belong to the public schools. When they are on the school grounds the teachers are responsible for their conduct; but the schools have them only six hours out of the twenty-four. Where are they

the rest of the time? Under the control of their parents, who cannot shift the whole government to the shoulders of the teachers, and charge all vices school accounts.

The lack of home discipline, of parental restraint, is a fruitful cause of evil. Headstrong children govern careless and weak parents. The greatest difficulty the teachers have to contend with, is the want of a hearty co-operation on the part of fathers and mothers in enforcing a strict, rigid, and unswerving school discipline. It is sheer transcendentalism to talk of Utopian systems of government by love alone. Judicious severity is, in the end, true benevolence and real kindness. Fear of punishment is a law of nature, of the physical world as well of the mental and moral. Were there no physical pain or punishment connected with drunkenness or licentiousness, how long would men hesitate to plunge into excesses? When an adept in street accomplishments, rude, impudent, careless, and profane, enters school, he submits only when he feels the strong hand of power holding him as relentlessly as fate. When his moral faculties have been developed, kindness will govern him, as the wild horse of the pampas once lasooed and subdued, submits to be led by a child. Yet, when the teacher takes a firm stand and enforces his rules by direct punishment, it too often is the case that unthinking parents sympathize with their dear little offenders, and "take them out of school," out of the hands of the terrible ogre who lives by beating innocent little children. Cannot parents see that the wilful boy will soon rebel against their authority just as he has against the teacher's? "They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind."— California Teacher.

TEACHING MANNERS.

The first and best method of teaching good manners is by example. Children are naturally imitative; the habits and manners they see, they will adopt. Those who are brought up under proper home influences will be good-mannered with very little positive instruction; you can point them out in your classroom from their demeanor. It is known that some of the colored domestics at the South possess a most polished address; and, although entirely illiterate, use the English language with great purity and elegance, from the fact of being raised in cultivated families.

Since example, then, is so very powerful, and must always go before precept, it behooves the teacher to endeavor to be blameless in all that concerns good breeding, especially in the presence of his pupils: because, standing as he does in the relation of a superior, they will naturally feel at liberty to imitate what they see in him, and he cannot consistently preach to them doctrines which he denies by his own practice.

I have stated that the first and best method to inculcate good manners is by example. I do not mean to say that it is unnecessary to teach also by precept.

This, indeed, is very necessary, particularly now-a-days, since the manners of our youth are so neglected by many parents. Children need very positive instructions concerning their personal deportment, and these instructions will need to be more minute in the lower grades, and where there is reason to believe they have been neglected at home. These instructions must apply not only to their demeanor in school, but also in the various circumstances in which they may be placed on the street, at the table, in company, during play, in public places, and in conversation.-16.

DULL CHILDREN.

It is my opinion that many a child presents the appearance of dullness, merely because the avenue of his mind has not been found; and not found because not sought. It is unreasonable to expect that one uniform mode of instruction shall be equally intelligible to all. One mind will catch the idea at once, because it links itself to what it already possesses; to another the idea is lost, because there is no such connecting link. Such cases are ordinarily set down as proof of dullness. But the intelligent preceptor will endeavor to discover where the difficulty lies, and to remove it. And this he will not do by scolding, or by calling the child "stupid"-for if once this impression is made on the mind, it relaxes all its energies-but by varying the explanation, presenting the idea in different words under various aspects, and with new illustrations. A boy even of the most reflective mind may at times be found to encounter greater difficulties than others of inferior powers. Some idea, springing out of the subject under attention, passes across his mind, obscures the explanation, and he is left in confusion. If, while he is in this state the subject is proceeded with, all becomes a riddle to him, and his attempts to answer the questions put to him will seem to betray stupidity. Yet the truth is, that his mind was more on the alert than were those of the others, and it stumbled through its own activity. The teacher's part in such a case is obvious. He will ascertain where the stumbling-block lies, and take it out of the way.

One remark more, and that is to enter my protest against the memoriter system, which, to the disgrace of the middle of the nineteenth century, is still to be met with in schools. It invariably marks an incompetent teacher. It reduces all the pupils to the single test of memory, and leaves the superior powers uncultivated, and so brings under the stigma of dullness all who are not endowed with more memory than understanding. It is true that the memory should be kept in exercise, but let the understanding go along with it, and then the exercise becomes both pleasant and profitable.-British Messenger.

READ so as to be heard; read so as to be understood; read so as to be felt. -John Pierpont.

sons.

HIGH PRESSURE SYSTEM.

The baneful effects of this mistaken system are not limited to a few individual pupils, who come to school in delicate health, and without the ordinary power of endurance. They are destructive to the health of scores and kun. dreds who commence their school life with sound and vigorous bodies. This hurtful system operates three ways to the injury of pupils,-physically, by preventing bodily exercise and recreation; mentally, by exacting too constant and too severe intellectual application; and morally, by unnecessarily tempting children to deceive in order to escape the consequences of failures in lesDr. Warren says, "" A close and constant occupation of mind, too long continued, lessens the action of the heart; and a languid circulation, thus being induced, prevents the full growth of the body." If the opinion of this eminent authority needed confirmation, our girls' schools could furnish it in abundance. Is it the design of Providence that all the brightest girls should have the most feeble and puny physical powers? But this absurd theory could be established as a scientific fact, by an examination of our schools, if it is only admitted that the children have not been stunted by the processes of education. Did my limits permit, I could produce evidence enough to satisfy any candid mind that overtasking is a very great evil in our schools, that it is an evil which an intelligent community ought not to permit.-Report by J. D. Philbrick..

HINTS ON TEACHING GEOGRAPHY.

The efforts made in teaching Geography, are, for the most part, prodigious; the results, really and practically, infinitessimal, and generally useless. The memory of the pupil is overtasked in attempts to learn everything, with very little natural system or method; while a knowledge of the few general principles and facts which are sufficient with which to begin life, is seldom or never acquired. Take a single point: The relative position of places. Few pupils, or adult persons, have even the most important localities of our own country so accurately mapped out in the picture of the mind, as to be able to give their relative position and direction correctly. Ask any school-boy in the "first class," or man of business, which is situated farthest north, Boston, or Columbus, Ohio; Philadelphia or San Francisco; or which is situated farthest west, Charleston or Pittsburg; and the answer will more likely be a Yankee guess than positive knowlege. Not long since a gentleman, who has been considerably connected with commercial affairs, was asked the longitude of Havana compared with Boston. His reply was, that it was "C about the same; possibly a little farther east ;"when told that Detroit and Havana were nearly on the same meridian, his incredulity was amusing.

The true meaning of latitude and longitude on the curved surface of the earth, is not generally understood by pupils. Teachers know very well that it is quite possible that all the definitions of those terms, usually given in ge

ographies, may be learned and recited, and yet the learner may not have a correct understanding of them. It is observed that such pupils generally regard all places in range of a straight line east and west, as having the same latitude, instead of following the curve of a parallel; and in longitude the margin of the map, instead of a meridian, is often taken as a guide. Longitude is also spoken of as distance east or west of a place, instead of the meridian of a place. Tell them that the difference in longitude between Boston and Liverpool, is sixty-eight degrees (nearly,) and that the length of a degree of longitude, on the parallel of Boston, is forty-four and a half miles; and they will tell you that the product of sixty-eight by forty-four and a half, will give you the sailing distance of a vessel between the two places. Few pupils would detect the error in such calculation, unless their attention is specially called to it. They will understand it, however, if meridians and parallels are drawn upon the blackboard, and they are show that the real distance between those places would be represented by the hypothenuse of a triangle, the base of which is parallel, or line extending from Boston due east until it reached the meridian which passes through Liverpool; and the altitude of the triangle, that portion of the meridian between Liverpool and the eastern extremity of the base; which is equivalent to the difference in latitude between Boston and Liverpool.

Learners should not be allowed to advance far in the study of geography until the subject of latitude and longitude is thoroughly mastered. When that is done, the relative position of places become a matter comparatively easy of acquisition. It is not to be accomplished, however, by committing to memory the latitude and longitude of a large number of places. Far from it. A few leading points and facts, judiciously selected, should be learned, and made guides for the association of others. To illustrate our meaning, let us suppose we are studying this branch of the subject in connection with North America. Select as guide points, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Charleston, Havana, New Orleans, and San Francisco. The list need not be extended; and were the lesson any other than our own country, it might be less. Let the exact latitude and longitude of these places be made so familiar that that they can be recalled without hesitation.

Observe, now, that the southern boundary of North America is near the parallel of ten degrees north; take, next, some of the most important parallels usually drawn upon maps of this continent, trace them across the map, and observe the principal States, cities, and bodies of water, through which, or near which, they pass. These are to be committed to memory, in connection with the parallels—not a difficult task, for they are so related that the laws of association will come to the aid of memory. They will be found to be substantially as follows:

The parallel of twenty degrees passes through the south-eastern part of the Island of Cuba, Yucatan, and near the city of Mexico; and, if extended into

« PreviousContinue »