THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. GLEANED FROM THE WRITINGS OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them by intelligence and virtue for the inheritance which awaits them. In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in the divine oracle, which declares that a little child shall lead them," for our little children will soon control the destinies of the Republic.-Inaugural Address. Liberty can be safe only when suffrage is illuminated by education. In order to have any success in life, or any worthy success, you must resolve to carry into your work a fullness of knowledge-not merely a sufficiency, but more than a sufficiency. A tenth of our national debt expended in public education fifty years ago would have saved us the blood and treasure of the late war.-House of Representatives, June 8, 1866. One half of the time which is now almost wholly wasted, in district schools, on English grammar attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our children to love the Republic and to become its loyal and life-long supporters. School houses are less expensive than rebellions. It is to me a perpetual wonder that any child's love of knowledge survives the outrages of the school house. We confront the dangers of suffrage by the blessings of universal education. That man will be a benefactor of his race who shall teach us how to manage rightly the first years of a child's education. The danger which arises from ignorance in the voter cannot be denied.--Inaugural Address. The old necessities have passed away. We now have strong and noble living languages; rich in literature, replete with high and earnest thought, the language of science, religion and liberty, and yet we bid our children feed their spirits on the life of the dead ages, instead of the inspiring life and vigor of our own times. do not object to classical learning-far from it but I would not have it exclude the living present. I The graduate would blush were he to mistake the place of a Greek accent, or put the ictus on the second syllable of Eolus; but the whole circle of the "liberalium artium," so pompously referred to in his diploma of graduation, may not have taught him whether the jejunum is a bone or the humerus an intestine. It seems to me that, in this act of giving, we almost copy its prototype in what God Himself has done on this great continent of ours. In the centre of its greatest breadth, where, otherwise, there might be a desert forever, he has planted a chain of the greatest lakes on the earth, and the exhalations arising from their pure waters every day, come down in gracious showers, and make that a blooming garden which otherwise might be a desert waste. And from our great wilderness lands it is proposed that their proceeds, like the dew, shall fall forever, not upon the lands, but upon the minds of the children of the nation, giving them, for all time to come, all the blessing, and growth, and greatness, that education can afford. That thought, I say it again, is a great one, worthy of a great nation; and this country will remember the man who formulated it into language, and will remember the Congress that made it law.-House of Representatives, Feb. 6, 1872. The best system of education is that which draws its chief support from the voluntary effort of the community, from the individual efforts of citizens, and from those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily impose upon themselves.-Ibid. Next in importance to freedom and justice, is popular education, without which, neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained.-Letter of Acceptance. Use several text-books. Get the views of different authors as you advance. In that way you can plow a broader furrow. I always study in that way.-Reply to a Scholar. The student should first study what he needs most to know; the order of his needs should be the order of his work.-Hiram, June 14, 1869. A finished education is supposed to consist mainly of literary culture. The story of the forges of the Cyclops, where the thunderbolts of Jove were fashioned, is supposed to adorn elegant scholarship more gracefully than those sturdy truths which are preaching to this generation in the wonders of the mine, in the fire of the furnace, in the clang of the iron-mills, and the other innumerable industries which, more than all other human agencies, have made our civilization what it is, and are destined to achieve wonders yet undreamed of.—Ibid. This generation is beginning to understand that education should not be forever divorced from industry; that the highest results can be reached only when science guides the hand of labor. With what eagerness and alacrity is industry seizing every truth of science and putting it in harness.-Ibid. I insist that it should be made an indispensable condition of graduation in every American college, that the student must understand the history of this continent since its discovery by Europeans, the origin and history of the United States, its constitution of government, the struggles through which it has passed, and the rights and duties of citizens who are to determine its destiny and share its glory.-Ibid. The stork is a sacred bird in Holland, and is protected by her laws, because it destroys those insects which would undermine the dikes, and let the sea again overwhelm the rich fields of the Netherlands. Shall this government do nothing to foster and strengthen those educational agencies which alone can shield the coming generation from ignorance and vice, and make it the impregnable bulwark of liberty and law?-House of Representatives, January 8, 1866. The children of to-day will be the architects of our country's destiny in 1900.-Ibid. Finally, our great hope for the future, our great safeguard against danger, is to be found in the general and thorough education of our people, and in the virtue which accompanies such education. And all these elements depend, in a large measure, upon the intellectual and moral culture of the young men who go out from our higher institutions of learning. From the stand-point of this general culture we may trustfully encounter the perils that assail us. Secure against dangers from abroad, united at home by the stronger ties of common interest and patriotic pride, holding and unifying our vast territory by the most potent forces of civilization, relying upon the intelligent strength and responsibility of each citizen, and, most of all, upon the power of truth, without undue arrogance, we may hope that in the centuries to come our Republic will continue to live and hold its high place among the nations as The heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time." Address at Hudson College. TEACHERS' QUALIFICATIONS. Superintendant Evans of Franklin County delivered an address on this subject before his institute. By the unanimous request of the teachers, it was published in the Chronicle. We make a few extracts, and are sorry we have not room for more, for the address is marked by sterling good sense expressed in vigorous English, and deserves to be widely circulated and read: I have sometimes heard persons spoken of as good teachers whose scholarship I knew to be very deficient. I have never had reason to believe such assertions. Such persons are usually fortunate enough to have strong personal qualifications which make up to a certain extent for other deficiencies. Their reputation is founded on delusion. There are teachers who are able to delude themselves as well as others, who think they can succeed as teachers with little or no scholarship; who believe they can teach grammar, though upon examination they can give little evidence of any knowledge of the subject. Such teachers put their trust not in themselves but in the text-book. To them the text-book is mighty and will prevail. The text-book will carry them through every difficulty in geography, history, or even the spelling-book. Thank fortune that we have text-books to put into the hands of our children so that they may perchance learn something even in spite of these impostors. The scholarship of the teacher should be above the average of the community in which he is teaching. He must be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Squire Jones and Mrs. Smith and all other intelligent and learned persons in the community. If he can not do so he had better quit teaching or emigrate to some other district where the people are not so smart. The teacher should be well read. He should be well acquainted with the writers most generally known. He should be familiar with the subjects on which they write. I take this to be an indication of an active, thinking, searching mind. The thinker will put himself in sympathy with the thought of the age; he cannot help it; he will do it as naturally as the hungry man seeks food. We do not send our children to school that they may obtain specific knowledge upon a few special branches of study only; we want them to become thinkers; we want them to become enlightened citizens of a great country. The teacher should be able to give direction to their thoughts and to furnish abundant material for their consideration. The teacher should lead them over the thoughts of men in the past and kindle them with the progressive ideas of the present age. That kind of teaching which creates a spirit of inquiry, provokes inves tigation and points to the source of information, is the kind which will tell upon the future of our children. We get no good By being ungenerous, even to a book, -Mrs. Browning. We send out with this issue several hundred bills for subscription due. Owing to the fact that our subscriptions are received from a variety of sources it is possible that there may be a few mistakes. If so, they will be gladly corrected. Any old subscribers not wishing their Journal continued should notify us, as it will in all cases be continued till ordered stopped, and until all arrearages are paid. In writing to us, be sure to give your postoffice address, that we may know where to find your name on our books. Address, IOWA NORMAL MONTHLY, DUBUQUE, IOWA. STATE NEWS AND NOTES. All of our readers are respectfully requested to send in at any time educational news items of general interest for publication in this department. The full returns of the late state election have not yet been officially published, but enough is known to insure Mr. Akers' election to the state superintendency, by a large majority over his two competitors, Mr. Butler and Mrs. Swain. There is the kindest feeling toward Mr. Akers among all the leading school men of our state, and he may rest assured that he will have their heartiest support and co-operation in every measure calculated to advance the best interests of popular education. Don't forget that the next meeting of the State Association is to be held at Oskaloosa, Dec. 27-9, with a first class programme and a good time generally. Judging from the letters we receive in regard to it from all sections of the state, the attendance will be large, but there's always room for one more, and so gentle reader, there will be room for you and you will be heartily welcome. We shall publish the programme in full next month. Washington County has had female superintendents for the past eight years. This year a man was nominated by the Republicans, but he ran behind his ticket 800 votes, and Miss Nettie Rousseau, a teacher in the Washington schools, was elected by about 400 majority. The entire corps of teachers at Lyons has been re-employed. These schools under their present management are said to be in excellent condition. Two additional rooms will be opened in the Atlantic schools in a short time to relieve the pressure to which they are now subjected from being over-crowded. Miss Duncan remains in charge of the high school department, and is doing excellent work. At the late election in Dubuque County Supt. Boyes received every vote cast. This will be his sixth term. Agency City has now a well-defined course of study, with an excellent high school. The The eighth grade in the Marshalltown schools is preparing to commemorate Bryant's birthday (Nov. 3) by a sketch of his home, incidents of his life, readings and quotations from his poems. Philomathian Society in these schools hold public exercises the last Friday afternoon of every school month. The library of this society contains about 350 volumes, which will be increased to 400 ere long. R. H. Frost was re-elected county superintendent of Cass county by a handsome majority, and so succeeds himself. He is a faithful and successful worker and deserves the endorsement he has received. Hon. H. W. Rothert, state senator elect in Lee County, has been a member of the Board of Education of the Keokuk schools for about ten years, and is now its president. |