Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

will be erected during the summer of '57. Yours, Respectfully, A. J. C.

MILWAUKEE SCHOOLS.

aral from "His Honor, the Mayor," in
which our schools received a due share of
attention, and were fairly recognized as
one of the institutions of the city.
next step was taken by the Common
Council, (viz): They increased the Board

The

I was much pleased to find, on a recent of School Commissioners from 15 to 21. visit to Milwaukee, that the public schools I presume you will call that a crab-like are in a flourishing condition. The teach- movement. They also resolved to build ers are wide awake and determined to two new School Houses, one in the Sevimprove themselves as well as the schools enth and one in the Second Ward, and to under their charge. They have organ-alter and repair the old buildings. The ized a Teachers' Association and meet work upon these is to be done by the beonce a week to compare views, methods ginning of the fall term. I hope they of teaching, conduct, recitations, &c. The will not stop there, but give us the furoutside organization is very imperfect niture and fixtures that a school room reand unweildy, the Board consisting of 21 quires. Now a few words as to ourselves, Commissioners who met once a month the teachers. We are really (I hope) (if they can get a quorum together) but waking up. At the beginning of this who seldom, if ever are seen in the school- term we organized a Teacher's Institute room. They have no Superintendent or and have had regular weekly meetings other agent to supervise and direct, no since. To be sure, we have only some High School, and as a necessary conse- 15 or 18 (out of 34) that attend, but this quence, but little unity of interest or ef- is an improvement, and I think I can fort. But I hope for and confidently ex-see the effect hoped for already. A spirit pect a better state of things ere long, as of emulation is being awakened and the the teachers are determined that they will schools are deriving benefit from it. Again no longer be at the head of third rate our schools have had more visitors this schools. It would be invidious to partic-term than ever before. My own school ularize when all are doing well, but in has averaged about one a day and the one or two schools improvements have others rather more. Now do not smile been made within a year past, that at the narration of this fact. You have would surprise one acquainted with the never worked day after day (as we Milstate of things two years since. Most of waukee Teachers) without seeing the the teachers in all of the Wards except face of any one except your pupils. If the Fifth are subscribers for the Journal, you had, you would know how to prize and Mr. Drew promised me that they every evidence tending to show that would not be without it much longer in your labors were appreciated. the Fifth. I shall endeavor to keep you advised of the condition and prospects of the Milwaukee schools in the future.

[blocks in formation]

CARROLL COLLEGE, WAUKESHA.-Pro. Rinker, late from Broome Co., N. Y., and not Prof. Wenzel, has charge of the Preparatory Department of this institution. Mr. Wenzel was engaged, but gave way in a spirit which does honor to him, for Prof. Rinker.

Editor's Department.

A WORD TO TEACHERS.

EXTENS

study on hand, and this should be such as to tax severely his mental powers, and thus keep them vigorous or render them strong. One hour daily spent in intense XTENSIVE literary acquirements and study, is of incalculable benefit as a correct theoretical views, importantį, means of mental discipline, while the as they may be, will not insure success in knowledge thus acquired would pay for teaching. Besides these, there must be the time. That there is so little mental the habit of constant and systematic effort on the part of the teacher, is one study. It is said, and with truth, that cause of the dullness so much complained no class of professional men study less of in the school room. The teacher gives than teachers, and that none ought to character to the school; if he is studistudy more. Repetition is necessary in ous, so will be his school; if he is thorteaching, and repetition leads to super-ough in his investigations and lucid in ficial habits of thinking and careless his explanations, his pupils will not be habits of speaking, unless there be fre- superficial. The habit of thoroughly quent and careful investigation of first understanding every subject presented, principles, and daily attention to the best and manfully meeting every difficulty means of illustrating them. can only be formed by severe and daily mental labor. The teacher who has studied an hour in the morning-studied

2. There should be daily preparation for the several recitations. Students will not long respect a teacher who is not

An impression prevails that the teacher will lose the confidence of his pupils, if he daily studies how best to perform we say, not mused, will feel a new life his daily duties. This is a great mistake. during the day. Reading may be done The lawyer, pursuing a similar course, in the evening, but the morning should does not lose the confidence of his client, be devoted to study. the physician of his patient, or the clergyman of his congregation. In most professions, time is given for this special preparation. No person in his senses would ask his minister to preach daily prompt to answer and willing to explain. during the year; the lawyer spends but He should study the text of the book he a few weeks of the year in the court is using. We care not how well he may room. That great energy is necessary to understand the subject of the lesson, he stimulate the teacher to make daily pre- cannot impart life and enthusiasm if he paration, no one can doubt, but without have not carefully reviewed it. This is it failure is certain. To plead at the bar particularly necessary in primary schools. or preach from the pulpit daily, is scarce- Even the lesson in the first reader should ly more arduous, intellectually, and cer- not be neglected. Difficulties should be tainly not, physically, than to discharge noticed--illustrations and anecdotes found. the multifarious duties of principal of The teacher thus prepared will cluster one of our Union Schools, containing about the lesson of the day information from five hundred to one thousand pu- that will never be forgotten by the child. pils; and to suppose that such a post can The practice so prevalent, of feeding the be filled without intense application of primary schools on the mere husks of the mind to study, is preposterous. knowledge-lifeless words-is a disgrace 1. Every teacher should have one new to teachers, and nothing but the indiffer

ence of school officers and of the com

STATE SCHOOL LAND OFFICE.--The

munity protects the practice from the Commissioners' report for May the fol

contempt it deserves.

lowing items:
Number acres sold,
Town lots,
Amount sold for,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

46

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

principal rec'd on sales,
interest,
"remaining unpaid,
Received from sale of land,
46 Interest on Loans,

66 46

3. There should be a course of professional reading. Other professions have libraries. If the minister is unable to buy one, his parishioners buy it for him, but not one teacher in ten in this state owns ten volumes of professional literature, or is a regular reader of any educational periodical. To find pleasure in teaching without the stimulus which may Lands, be obtained by these means, is an impossibility. Teaching becomes a trade. without any of that social intercourse and pecuniary stimulus found in the workshop.

The reason so many teachers are ashamed of their position is, that they know so little of teaching as a profession. They have so little acquaintance with those who have honored it, their ideas so seldom rise above the mere drudgery of the school room that they cannot help despising themselves and all whom they suppose resemble themselves. Consequently instead of effort we find envy, and instead of sympathy, opposition.

That person falls immeasurably below any true ideal of a teacher, who does not aspire to what is higher than the point reached by most of those called teachers. We owe it to those who honor us with their confidence, we owe it to ourselves and to our country, that we make a manly effort to elevate our profession by elevating ourselves.

THE article in our last number, "The Art of Teaching," should be credited to the American Journal of Education and College Review-also the article in this number, "Bem's method of teaching history."

Penalty on Forfeiture, 181 40

Fines,

Loans from School and University

Am't of School and University
Fuud on hand May 31st,
Income,

66

81 80

9,470 50

11,529 58 12,155 52

WE are glad to hear that the Milwaukee teachers have formed an Association, and that a majority of the city teachers are members-eighteen out of thirty-four; but where are the other sixteen?

We

think the citizens of Milwaukee will do well to encourage this movement. We hope soon to hear that every teacher employed by the School Board is a punctual, earnest and hard-working member of this Association.

ITEMS.

BELOIT UNION SCHOOL.-We understand that this school is in a flourishing condition.The number at present members, is about 450. There are six teachers employed.

This school has, since its organization, been under the charge of accomplished teachers, and we believe the present Principal, W. C. Dustin, is conducting the school in such a manner as to secure the confidence of the citizens of Beloit, and of the teachers of the State.

We learn that the School is not visited as much as it ought to be. It is to be regretted that so few, in most parts of our State, feel the necessity of encouraging the teachers and pupils of their schools, by their frequent presence in the school room. This subject demands the attention of School Boards, and if they are unSeveral articles are unavoidably able to perform this part of their duties, it crowded out this number. would be better for them to resign.

THE summer term of Albion Academy peculiarly happy in his method of treating the will close on the 19th inst. This Institution, principles of elocution. This part of the Fifth under the charge of Thos. R. Williams, is in a Reader should be in the hands of every teachflourishing condition.

TA FINE lot has been purchased by the citizens of Fond du Lac for a High School building. Fond du Lac is destined to be an important point, educationally, as well as commercially. Mr. Van Ness, and others who have labored with him, are beginning to reap the result of years of self-denying toil.

WE notice that two new School Houses are soon to be erected in Milwaukee. Friends, why do you not go a step farther and build a High School building, which will be a credit to your beautiful city, and an honor to our glorious State? Say, why do you not do it?

Those

er. We notice several points in which these
Readers possess very decided merit.
wishing a series exhibiting a thorough knowl-
edge on the part of the author, of the wants of
our schools, fine taste in making selections and
an unexceptionable morality, will do well to
send word to the publishers. Phillips, Samp-
son & Co., No. 13 Winter street, Boston.

THE TEACHERS' MISCELLANY.-This is a volume of interesting educational matter, embracing addresses from some of the best thinkers of the country. It will be especially welcome to teachers, as it contains the results of much reflection and observation on educational subjects. Either of the seventeen addresses it contains is worth more than the cost of the

volume. Published by Moore, Wilstach, Keys

We understand that the Platteville Academy, J. L. Pickard, Prin., is in a very flourishing condition. This Institution has exerted a wide and healthful influence on the & Co., Cincinnati. mind of the south-western portion of our State. Give us such a High School where-ful attention of Teachers and School officers to ever one is needed in the State, and who the list of books advertised by A. S. Barnes & would fear the future?

WE understand that the people of the west district of Beloit have voted to discontinue their school until the new Union School building is finished.

LIBRARY BOOKS.-We wish to call the care

Co., in this number of the Journal. These books have a national reputation, and they are what they purport to be-fit for a School Library. The Teachers Library ought to be owned by every teacher in the State, and the Home Cyclopedias ought to be owned by every It is the intention, we learn, of the building family. There is no humbug about them.'committee to put double desks into the High Will School Officers, previous to expending School room. We are confident that a little their Library money, carefully look at this list reflection and observation would convince and select such books as their circumstances them that to do so would be a mistake. may require. Address A. S. Barnes & Co., the desks be single by all means. No. 51 John street, New York, or E. B. Gray, Milwaukee, Wis.

Let

We understand that Mr. Laughran, recently of Waynesburg College Penn., has taken charge of the High School at Hazel Green, Grant Co., Wis.

BOOK TABLE.

CYCLOPEDIA OF TRAVEL.-Bayard Taylor is preparing a work, embracing the results of travel for the last half century. This must be one of the most useful books ever published,— It will be out about the first of next July, and will furnish at a cost of three or four dollars SARGENT'S STANDARD READERS.-If the what cannot be obtained at present for less evils of book making, as Lord Bacon said, are than one hundred. No man living, with the only to be cured by making more books, such exception of Humboldt, is better qualified to as shall cause the bad ones to be forgotten, prepare a work of thts kind than Bayard Taythen will this series do good. We do not well lor. We hope Teachers and School officers what remains to be done in order that a will obtain it as soon as possible for their series of readers should embrace more good schools. Published by Moore, Wilstach, qualities than these. We think Mr. Sargent Keys, & Go., Cincinnati.

see,

WISCONSIN

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

VOLUME I.-JULY, 1856.-NUMBER V.

[From the Jour. of Ed. and Col. Review. THE TRUE IDEA OF FEMALE EDUCATION.

BY JAMES R. SPALDING, A. M.

For woman is not undevelopt man,
But diverse; could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond
is this,-

Not like to like, but like in difference:
Yet in the long years liker must they grow,
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness, and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the

world;

She mental breadth; nor fail in childhood

care.

More as the double-natured poet each;
Till at last she sets herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words.
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summed in all their

powers,

[either the one or the other, in the scale of existence. They are both correlative —each peculiar, and yet made for each other; both sharing in common elements of being, under different modifications, and cach possessing powers, the developing and harmonizing of which are necessary to the realization of the ideal type of the race,

My very soul is sickened at the antagonistic spirit so often displayed in upholding what are called the rights of woman. It profanes the sex; it affronts high Heaven. Man and woman are coworkers here on earth, and co-heirs of immortality. Each gives the other the precedence on the score of high nobility, and each counts it a glory to learn of the other. The emancipation of woman!Strange words these for a Christian land! The time, I know, has been, when woman was a delicate toy, a passive instrument, a petted slave; but that time ended when first her baptism in Christain faith and love began. She whom the wisdom of hoary antiquity deemed too weak to act as witness to a dying man's will, was It is assumed that every reader of called upon to give her testimony to the periodical like this can both comprehend cause of God. From the palace and the and feel the truth, as well as the beauty cottage, gathered from all ranks, made of these words of the first of living poets. up of all ages, matrons grave with years, It is my purpose to write something up-young mothers with clinging infants, viron the distinctive process of female edu-gins tender and pure as the maid mother cation-a distinctive process arising from of Him they adored, calmly and cheera diversity in organization, and in sphere; fully bore the horrid penalties of the and yet I cannot consent to enter into any faith that was in them. Mangled and formal argument, to prove that feminine gored by wild cattle, torn by savage nature is not identical with masculine na- beasts, mutilated and hacked piecemeal ture, or to determine the superiority of by the executioner, their flesh rent by

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each, and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,

But like each other, c'en as those who love.

a

« НазадПродовжити »