the wanton destruction of school property, and gross disobedience and constant disregard of the rules of the school. The careful and thorough investigation of this matter by a Committee of the Board, having resulted not simply in fully proving the accuracy of this statement, but in showing that the evil is of far greater magnitude than was represented in the report, there is no need of any farther statement of facts by me. The state of the case must be apparent to all-there is a large class of boys whom our schools do not and cannot restrain, and whom, therefore, they cannot benefit, but must send adrift, to find their way inevitably to the reformatories and prisons, after having committed those injuries to the community which our school system was designed to prevent. But it must be borne in mind that these boys cannot be thus expelled from our schools until they have proved themselves incorrigible. How much injury must they have committed in the school, by their lawlessness and their bad example, how much time of the other pupils must they have wasted, and how much of the physical strength and nervous energy of the teachers must they have consumed, before they have reached that maturity of misconduct to entitle the principal to regard them as incorrigible! At last, however, this consummation is reached, and the parents are notified that their child has been expelled from the school, because he cannot be restrained. When they consult the law they find that the parents, guardians, and others having the care or custody of children, shall be entitled to send them to any of the schools; but they are told that this privilege is only applicable to such children as, by the mildness of their character, are amenable to kind and gentle influences, and that a head-strong, turbulent, or obstinate boy has no right to claim the privileges of education, although education implies training and discipline as well as instruction. It is fair to presume that many of the great characters of history remarkable for their firmness, persistence of purpose, and iron will, would have been candidates for ex pulsion had they in early age attended schools in which there was so great a deficiency in the means of control. There is no doubt that thousands of children are roaming the streets, deprived of the benefits of school training, and growing up in ignorance and vice; and the expediency of requiring the attendance of all such children at the public schools by a compulsory law has been earnestly advocated. The principle on which our school system is based is, that it is the duty of government to protect society from the evils of ignorance and its inseparable concomitant, crime. Educated citizens are a blessing to the community, and every uneducated citizen a curse. If this principle is correct, the question has been properly asked, What right have the official custodians of public education to deprive any children of its benefits, unless those children have become amenable to treatment in a refor matory school? What legal expulsion from a public school can there be of a child for disobedience, for instance, when disobedience is the law of a child's nature? It is true that some children are very readily controlled, but it is also true that some of the most promising children are so self-willed as to be almost incapa ble of instruction and discipline. It is also true that in some families there is very efficient discipline, and that the children of such families can be easily gov erned in school by influences brought to bear upon them at home; but there is a very large class of pupils who are under very little restraint at home. There are pupils, the sons of widowed mothers, who cannot be restrained at all at home; and when these are turned from the school they are lost indeed. To these children the city owes an education, and in order to be able to bestow it, it is bound by every obligation of right and duty to govern them, and if its chosen officers expel them they evade a most solemn responsibility. In my last Annual Report I recommended that, as "moral suasion" had failed to restrain a large class of the pu pils, the right to inflict corporal punish. ment should be restored to the principals. | principals and teachers have found themIn the opinion upon which this recom- selves driven into questionable expedients, mendation was based, I have been greatly strengthened by the conclusion at which the Investigating Committee, before referred to, arrived, and which prompted them to report unanimously in favor of such restoration, as well as by the fact, that after a full discussion in open Board, so large a number of its members were also in favor of the restoration. As, however, the report of the Committee has not been adopted, the question what shall be done with persistently disobedient and disorderly pupils is still an open one; and I commend it to the earnest consideration of the Board during the ensuing year.-Report of Hon. HENRY KIDDLE, Supt. New York City, 1873. I regret to state, as the result of repeat ed surveys of the whole field during the last nine years that, since the abolition of all forms of corporal punishment, the discipline of a large number of our male one of the most natural, common, and yet most injurious of which, is the confession of the want of the requisite power to control, in the appeal to direct parental interference with school government; · that this appeal, now so frequently made, is so vexatious to many of the parents thus appealed to, that the pupil is at last either sent to some parochial school from which no such appeal is likely to come, or, as is more usually the case, receives at home and in at least equal measure, that corporal punishment which, for his sake, has been abolished in school. The old axiom, "Qui facit per alium, facit per se," can scarcely have a more pertinent application. Whatever the evils which the present by-law upon this subject may have sought to remedy, they are far exceeded, in my judgment, both in character and numbers, by those that have followed its establishment. So far from abolishing corporal punishment for offenses in school, it is obvious that it has simply transferred it, in part at least, and often with enhanced severity, to other and frequently less judicious agents, while, on the other hand, thousands of that large, dangerous, and sadly-increasing element of our social system, boys who are under no restraint at home, and who are most of all profited by it in school, are thus systematically their own vicious willfulness over wholetrained to confidence in the victory of some law and manifest right. schools has sensibly deteriorated, although I leave to you, as your own proper function, the suggestion of the remedy or remedies. I have not sought to argue, but simply to present the facts as they have forced themselves upon my attention, and, under a strong sense of duty to the schools and to the community, to comply with your direction to report upon the order and discipline. It only remains briefly to add that in the female depart. ments these matters continue in their long-established excellent condition.Report of T. F. HARRISON, Asst. Supt. N. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.-A report, in these times, could hardly be considered complete without some reference to this subject. We are of those, however, who firmly believe that the cry against the use of corporal punishment in school, is loudest from those who know the least about school work. We do not believe that the best experienced teachers in the land deem it prudent, or wise, to forbid it. The best disciplinarians seldom make use of it, yet they do not like to be disarmed. Pseudo reformers assail it as being a "relic of barbarism;" "brute force in the man appealing to brute force in the boy," &c., &c. We are half inclined to say, nonsense! What if the "brute force" comes first from the boy? What if there is an open rebellion, or a personal insult offered, perhaps during the first week of the administration of a "new teacher"? We would have as little punishment of any kind, as practicable. The best managed schools are the least disciplined. We would not have cowhides and ferules constitute an essential part of the school apparatus, to be used daily, nor weekly, nor monthly; but only, when there seemed to be no other judicious remedy. Nor, would we have a mutinous boy expelled from school, degraded to the street, to become a vagrant or a criminal, because, forsooth, it might be deemed inhuman,by compelling him to submit to whole same restraint,-to make a man of him. We have known a person to steal that he might be put into jail. We have known a boy to rebel in school, that he might be expelled therefrom. Expulsion was what his heart desired; hence by doing wrong he was made temporarily happy. The whip should not be used as a stimulus to study. This is never practicable—always dangerous. A mind paralyzed by fear is in the worst condition possible, to master a lesson.-Report of Hon. HORACE M. HALL, Supt. Pub. Ins., Colorado. THE discovery is said to have been made in Rome on the Esquiline Hill, of some enormous ancient vessels in pottery ware, the largest ever found, and of such a size that a man could easily live in one. INCOMPETENT TEACHERS. There is no profession or calling, in which incompetency, if accompanied with a moderate amount of discretion, can be so completely hidden, as in this. A lawyer makes a serious blunder, and loses at once his case and the confidence of his client and of the community. A surgeon mis-sets a broken limb and he suffers, in consequence of his bungling, not only a loss of practice, but from a suit for damages. An architect erects a building that tumbles upon the heads of its occupants, and he must flee from the place to escape righteous indignation and an indictment for manslaughter. A teacher, however, may, with impunity, lumber along term after term and year after year, warping, dulling, befogging, stupefying or crazing the tender and susceptible minds that are given him to train, and no notice be taken of the irreparable injury that is being done. Could we but know how many bright, ambitious boys have become discouraged and disgusted with school work, and have been driven upon the street and thence into crime; could we but know how many delicate, sensitive natures have been crushed or driven into delirium, through injudicious management at school, we would doubtless exercise as much care in the selection of teachers as we do of cooks. Not long since I visited a primary school. General exercises were being conducted. In response to one of the questions a bright little seven-year old held up her hand, her eyes beaming with delight and satisfaction because she could give an answer. She was called upon and gave it, essentially correct, but couched in language slightly ungrammatical. The teacher frowned and adminis tered a severe rebuke for the bad EngHish. The little head fell upon the desk and I saw the face no more during my stay. Do such teachers do no harm? Is it any wonder that children have to be driven to such a school? It is not in the nature of children to dislike to be taught. They crave information. If any one doubts this, let him take the hand of some little prattler, and start out for a walk into the country, or along the sea shore, or down the city street. Let him discourse, in language within the comprehension of the child, upon the instinct and skill displayed by the birds in building their nests; or upon the philosophical mechanism of the various kinds of shells; or, upon the manufacture of toys; and see who will tire first, the teacher or the taught. A school may, and should be made attractive, not repulsive. This will be done if the teacher has a proper conception of the duties belonging to the profession, a love for it, and for children, coupled with an ability to read character and impart knowledge.-Report of Hou. HORACE M. HALE, Supt. Pib. Instruction, Colorado. THE NORMAL SCHOOL WAR. BY 1. S. MAHIEN, ST. PAUL. Fiercely has raged the war of words and wildly have the arms of Minnesota law-makers gesticulated in the Normal school at the State Capital, but still the Normal schools at Winona, Mankato and St. Cloud stand unscathed, to furnish ample food for wrangling and printer's ink another winter. However, as one eminent Senator remaaked, it is probable that good will result from the agitation which has been made. Some bitter statements were made in regard to Prof. Wm. F. Phelps, principal of Winona Normal School. That gentleman has enemies, and perhaps not without reason, for parties of undoubted veracity and ability, and with abundant means for information, say that the Winona Normal School has been mismanaged. Prof. Phelps is apparently in love with his school and does not seem to know that the "money thing" is not plentiful in a new State, but in making his annual report, is fond of such expressions as "means should be supplied," some provision should be made," which same are not welcome to the minds of the "horny handed" grangers who clinch their dear, hard-earned currency with a stubborn vehemence-and well they 66 might. However, Prof. Phelps is no easy man to handle, as the State Normal Board discovered last fall, when they hauled him over the coals for "conduct unbecoming a teacher and a gentleman" or some such thing. The whole investigation ended in a farce, and Prof. Phelps came out with fiying colors. The Senator who distinguished himself mostly by his onslaught on the Normal Schools was I. Donnelly, Esq., formerly M. C. from Minnesota. He made an elaborate speech in which he said that it was not much of a job to manufacture school teachers; it was in fact something which any man of average ability could do. And why should the State of Minnesota expend so much money in educating schoolma'ms when they would be likely to go off and get married before teaching any "young ideas" whatever, in the face of the fact that 500 New England schoolma'ms could be imported at the cost of the mere freight? Why should the pioneers on our boaders, fighting with poverty, be obliged to support such "lordly establishments?" This is patent, that Normal Schools in Minnesota are ahead of the development of the State. Yet, as our area is so large, and our population scattered, their number is not sufficient to meet the wants of the people. Add to this that the attendance at the Normal schools is large, and the conclusion would almost be arrived at that the Normal school system is not the most judicious for teaching teachers. In New York it was attempted during a series of years to train teachers in the colleges and academies, and several years since the plan was abandoned as futile. Supt. J. P. Wickersham, of Pennsylvania, however, says that "our best academies and high schools teach the several branches equally as well and in the same way as our best Normal schools." Common sense says that as the teachers at Normal schools are made of the same material as outsiders, there must have been something unsound in the New York system, and that Prof. Wickersham's head is level. If a high school teacher is not able to teach a student with reference to his teaching others, that teacher is unfit for the position he holds, and should go to farming or invest in a saw-horse. If all the academies and high schools in the State of Minnesota or any other State trained teachers, the teachers in these schools being under rigorous supervision, with a piece of hemp, or bread and water for 20 years, ready for every embezzler, the wants of the people would be better supplied and money would be saved. But with three Normal Schools on the hands of our good people it would not perhaps be expedient to make a new move, at least for the present. The elephant is too unwieldy to twirl at will between your thumb and fingers. If legislatures could do something to wards raising the salaries of country school teachers, it would bring forward many persons of ability to engage in the "noblest of callings," and soon there would be little occasion for the Normal School then. INSTRUCTION IN HISTORY. BY PROF. W. F. ALLEN, STATE UNIVERSITY. The reason that History is found the most difficult and unsatisfactory of all branches to teach, is that teachers do not form to themselves a clear conception what it is that the pupil should learn. There is a sort of superstition attaching to the past, which requires us to chronicle as historical events, occurrences which would hardly make any impression on us if they were contemporaneous; and to burden our minds with strings of names and dates which have neither interest nor meaning for us; just as we feel bound to prize as treasures of literature masses of rhyme which we should never take the pains to read if they were fresh from Appleton's or Osgood's counters. Let it be remembered that life-especially the school-life-is very short, while the facts of history are infinite in number; and that it is a wrong to the child's mind to cram it with any facts but those which will be of some benefit to it. Now history, in the lower school-years, is not a disciplinary study, but one the sole value of which consists in the knowledge which is acquired. I might except the disciplinary value to the memory of learning bare facts; but this is not its value as history-for this purpose the class might as well commit to memory the list of unclaimed letters in the post-office, published in the daily paper. At any rate, apart from this, history is learned, at this stage, merely for the facts. Further, these facts are so innumerable, and depend so much upon one another for their full understanding, that it is hardly too much to say that the only way to acquire them is by copious reading. A boy who has a taste for books, and who has access to plenty of interesting historical works, will learn history fast enough; there is no danger about that. And for such a boy the only rule is to read what he is interested in. One will take Bancroft or Hildreth as a starting point, and continue with Palfrey, Irving, Parkman and other special histories of his native country. Another will select that series of distinguished American historians, consisting of Kirk, Prescott and Motley, and add to them Robertson, Froude, D'Aubigne and Ranke, until he has stored away a great amount of knowledge of this critical period of modern European history. And so on, the boy who has a taste for historical reading, needs nothing but to be turned loose into a library. Nothing else, that is to say, for the acquisition of facts; for the most industrious reader requires something to arrange and systematise his knowledge. And what a boy or girl who reads history requires, in order to digest his reading, is, in the main, precisely what every boy and girl requires, as a basis and guide for future reading, and as knowledge, indispensable to even the lowest degree of culture. These requirements are: first, an outline of chronology, secondly a knowledge of the great decisive events and names of history-as we may call them, historical distances and historical emphasis. The mind should be able to direct itself promptly and accurately to those names and events which form turning points or critical moments in the development of the race; |
