Quaint corners in Philadelphia, with one hundred and seventy-four illustrations . wer ways very st-ldom getinto the class-room ; tlu young teacher goes from herl)ractice to her school, and settles down to the drearygrind of memorizing which was discarded in New Eng-land thiily years ago. The grand i)rinciple seemsto be that one i)rocess of driving individual nails intothat one faculty—the memory ; the best teacher is shewho can drive the largest number (to hold) in a giventime ; the l)est examiner is he whose claw-hannner ques-tions elicit the largest num))er of these with the fewestconfusing
Quaint corners in Philadelphia, with one hundred and seventy-four illustrations . wer ways very st-ldom getinto the class-room ; tlu young teacher goes from herl)ractice to her school, and settles down to the drearygrind of memorizing which was discarded in New Eng-land thiily years ago. The grand i)rinciple seemsto be that one i)rocess of driving individual nails intothat one faculty—the memory ; the best teacher is shewho can drive the largest number (to hold) in a giventime ; the l)est examiner is he whose claw-hannner ques-tions elicit the largest num))er of these with the fewestconfusing appeals to the general understanding. And supposing that we had two thousand teacher>,all abU and willing to teach in the other fashion, theyhave positively not the time to do it. One excellentteacher said to a visitor : T am con>tantly tempted,in my class-room, to deviate from the text-book and talk(ihout the lesson, but T have to resist this, or I shouldfall behind at examination. Another confessed : Ittlid mortify me, at the last examination, to tind that in II llfi. FIVE MINUTES LATE. PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 281 answer to a question in etymology, every one in theclass gave the same sentence as an illustration. Yet it is plain that there nuist l)e some accepted testfor promotions, and that the form of this is a truly ditli-cult problem. It can only l)e claimed in this regard,that the aim of examiners should he to discover thegeneral development of the childs intellect at the seve-ral stages of his education, rather than, or at least inlarge addition to, the number of unassociated facts,dates and rules which he lias succeeded in would we underestimate the value of drill, pureand simple. Any method of instruction which explainsso much that the pupil has nothing to do is a viciousmethod ; and any which habituates him to depend forhis incentive to application wholly on the attractivenessof his subject is vicious. lie should be so taught thathe wants to learn (that
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbarberedwinatlee18511, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890
