Book ~r__c 
 
 GopightN" 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 
 
TIMELY TOPICS 
 
 FOR 
 
 TEACHERS 
 
 1907 
 
 
 THOS. SCHOLES & COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
LIBRARY of CONfiRESS 
 
 Two CoDies Received 
 
 MAH iB 1907 
 
 •a^GcDyrleht Entry . 
 
 Cl^S A-XXC, No. 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 J S 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 THOS. SCHOLES & COIVIPANT 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
 
 In the matter of testing the qualifications of the 
 teachers in the public schools, there has been for many 
 years a notable lack of progress. Even in the States 
 which are deemed most advanced in their educational 
 system there has been a disposition to cling to the old 
 plan of periodical re-examinations of teachers, despite 
 the needless drudgery involved in these repeated tests. 
 
 Iowa has taken the lead in the adoption of a better 
 plan. That the teacher has not ceased to grow, but has 
 striven to keep abreast of the times in educational 
 thought and in knowledge of the world's work, can be 
 demonstrated in a better way than by going through the 
 old routine of questions and answers relating to the 
 branches taught. The ability to prepare a thesis, or 
 essay, on a topic in pedagogy or in the line of current 
 events, is an evidence of advancement in professional or 
 
 general culture. 
 
 The school law of Iowa, as recently amended, provides 
 that certificates of the first grade "shall be renewable, 
 without examination, provided the applicants shaR show, 
 by examination or otherwise, that at least one line of 
 
professional inquiry has been successfully conducted 
 during the life of the certificate;" and that holders of cer- 
 tificates of the second grade shall have "the privilege of 
 one renewal, without further examination, under the 
 same rules." 
 
 The essential features of the new plan are set forth in 
 the following extract from the regulations adopted by 
 the Iowa Educational Board of Examiners, governing the 
 renev/al of county certificates for teachers; 
 
 Regulations 1 and 2 (c). 
 
 The application for renewal shall also be accompanied 
 by a reasonably complete paper, written by the applicant 
 in the presence of a county superintendent or of some 
 one selected by him. Such paper may be written on 
 any one of such dates as the superintendent may appoint, 
 on a topic selected from the list given under Regulation 
 4 and assigned at the time by him. The object is to en- 
 able the Examining Board to form a correct estimation of 
 the applicant's accuracy in penmanship, in capitalization, 
 in punctuation, and in spelling, as well as his grasp of the 
 topic considered, and to judge of his ability to express 
 his thoughts in correct English. 
 
 Regulation 4: 
 
 The paper required under "c," Regulations 1 and 2, will 
 be written on one of the following topics: 
 
 The educational theories of Rousseau. 
 
 The doctrine of interest, 
 
 A discussion of Herbert Spencer's Theory of Punish- 
 ment, 
 
 The use of the study period. 
 
 The Panama Canal, 
 
 Reclaiming the arid lands in the West, 
 
 The value of handwork in public schools. 
 
 The investigation of a subject assigned is a compara- 
 tively easy matter to those who have access to care- 
 fully selected libraries, including the latest books relating 
 to it, but the v/ork becomes difficult where the conditions 
 are otherwise; and in any event, the investigator will be 
 
greatly aided, and a waste of time and effort avoided, by 
 the possession of a condensed, accurate, and logical sum- 
 mary of the essentials of the theme. 
 
 It is the purpose of this little book to present the 
 necessary data as a basis for the preparatory study of 
 the themes prescribed, together with a conspectus of 
 helpful books for such further study of them as may be 
 desired, and with information as to where and how these 
 may be obtained. 
 
 The publishers hope that the "Timely Topics" will 
 prove useful, not only to the teachers and school officers 
 who may read it with reference to theses, but to all who 
 are seeking a condensed presentation of the subjects as 
 a matter of general reading or for whatever purpose. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 The Educational Theories of Rousseau 11 
 
 The Doctrine of Interest 19 
 
 A Discussion of Herbert Spencer's Theory of Punisn- 
 
 ment 27 
 
 The Use of the Study Period 43 
 
 The Panama Canal 51 
 
 Reclaiming of Arid Lands in the West 58 
 
 The Value of Handwork in Public Schools 68 
 
^ 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 LIS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL THEORIES OF 
 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, '^the paradox of moral- 
 ists, a strange compound of the best and the worst 
 in human nature," was a Swiss agitator whose the- 
 ories have provoked much discussion. After send- 
 ing his own children to an asylum for foundlings, 
 and living in unbridled license, he sought to be- 
 come a reformer, and invoked for all children 
 extravagant solicitude on the par^of their paren 
 While his sincerity is conceded, his theories ^re a 
 strange compound of the philosophic and the un- 
 tenable. His theory of education is set forth in a 
 nondescript volume entitled, ''Emile," from the 
 name of the imaginary youth described in it. 
 
 Emile is an orphan, and is reared in solitude by 
 a "governor" of adult years. From the early life 
 of Emile, both family influence and school train- 
 ing are alike totally eliminated; thus he has no real 
 home, no childhood companions, no school associa- 
 tions. It is an error to assume that this is "getting 
 back to nature;" for though we ignore the school, 
 the relations of the family have existence in the 
 natural state, and cannot consistently be ignored. 
 
 11 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 But so radical was Rousseau that he deemed al- 
 most everything wrong in society as he found it, 
 and there seemed to be a merit in a total reversal 
 of existing conditions. 
 
 ''Coming from the hand of nature/' he says, 
 ^'everything is good; in the hands of man, every- 
 thing degenerates. Man obliges one soil to nourish 
 the productions of another, one tree to bear the fruits 
 of another; he mingles and confounds climates, ele- 
 ments, seasons; he mutilates his dog, his horse, his 
 slave. He overturns everything, disfigures every- 
 thing; he loves deformity, monsters; he desires that 
 nothing should be as nature made it." 
 
 A statement so*insane in its pessimism as this has 
 the effect to startle those who have thought not of 
 nature, but only of art ; and thus it has been of service 
 in awakening teachers and parents to a realization 
 of the great facts of nature, and of the mission of 
 art to assist and perfect nature, rather than to thwart 
 it. 
 
 ''Childhood," Rousseau declares, ''has its own 
 methods of seeing, thinking, and feeling. Noth- 
 ing show^s less sense than to try to substitute our 
 own methods for these. I would rather require a 
 child ten years old to be five feet tall than to be ju- 
 dicious. * * * The earliest education ought 
 to be purely negative. It consists not in teaching 
 truth or virtue, but in shielding the heart from vice 
 
 12 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 and the mind from error. If you could do nothing 
 at all, and allow nothing to be done; if you could 
 bring up your pupil sound and robust to the age of 
 twelve years, without his knowing how to distin- 
 guish his right hand from his left, the eyes of his 
 understanding would from the very first open to 
 reason. Without a prejudice or a habit there would 
 be in him nothing to counteract the effect of your 
 care. Before long he would become in your hands 
 the wisest cf men.'^ 
 
 Quick's comment upon this is as follows: 'This 
 governor is to devote himself for some years entirely 
 to imparting to his pupil these difficult arts — the 
 art of being ignorant and of losing time. Till he is 
 twelve years old, Emile is to have no instruction 
 whatever." 
 
 Of discipline Rousseau says: 
 ''Treat your pupil as his age demands. Never, 
 absolutely never, command him to do a thing, what- 
 ever it may be. Do not let him even imagine that 
 you claim any authority over him. Let him know 
 only that he is weak and you are strong ; that from 
 his condition and yours he is necessarily at your 
 mercy. Let him know this, learn it, and feel it. 
 Let him know that upon his haughty neck is the 
 stern yoke which nature imposes upon man, the 
 yoke of necessity, under which every finite being 
 must toil. Let him discover this necessity in the 
 
 13 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 nature of things; never in human caprice. Let the 
 rein that holds him back be power, not authority. 
 Do not forbid, but prevent, his doing what he ought 
 not; and in thus preventing him, use no explana- 
 tions, give no reasons. Exercise his body, his senses, 
 faculties, powers, but keep his mind inactive as long 
 as possible. Distrust all the sentiments which he 
 acquires previous to the judgment which should en- 
 able him to scrutinize them. Prevent or restrain 
 all foreign impressions; and in order to hinder the 
 rise of evil, be not in too great a hurry to instill 
 good; for it is such only when the mind is enlight- 
 ened by reason. Look upon every delay as an ad- 
 vantage." 
 
 Quick remarks: "The reader will probably have 
 concluded by this time that no child can possibly be 
 s^ educated as to resemble Emile, and that no wise 
 father would so educate his son if it were possible. 
 A child who does not understand what a command 
 la, and who can be induced to do anything for an- 
 other only by the prospect of laying that person 
 under an obligation, who has no habits, and is guid- 
 ed merely by his inclinations — such a child as this 
 is, fortunately, nothing but a dream of Rousseau's. 
 But fantastical, as Rousseau often is, the reader of 
 his ^Emile' is struck again and again, not more by the 
 charm of his language than by his insight into child 
 nature, and the wisdom of his remarks upon it." 
 
 Says Rousseau: "We never know how to put our- 
 
 14 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 selves in the place of children; we do not enter into 
 their ideas, we lend them our own ; and following al- 
 ways, our own train of thoughts, fill their heads 
 with extravagance and error, even while we are dis- 
 cussing incontestable truths. * * * j -^yigh that 
 some judicious hand would give us a treatise on the 
 art of studying children — an art of the greatest impor- 
 tance to understand, though fathers and preceptors 
 know not as yet even the elements of it." The wuve 
 of ''child study" which swept over this country some 
 years ago was but a belated response to this appeal 
 of that strange but sincere, earnest, and devoted ad- 
 vocate of the children. 
 
 At twelve years, the age at which the American 
 boy of to-day enters upon the work of the seventh 
 grade, Emile begins to study in earnest. Before this 
 time, indeed, he has acquired some knowledge of 
 reading, acting on his own incentive wholly. Now 
 he studies with some system. He learns things, 
 rather than words. He learns largely by object teach- 
 ing. He acquires a knowledge of physics by ex- 
 periments. His motive is interest and a sense of 
 his own necessities. He takes nothing upon author- 
 ity, but proves all things for himself. 
 
 Emile is to read what interests him. Rousseau 
 says : 
 
 "Since we must have books, there is one which, 
 to my mind, furnishes the finest of all treatises on 
 education according to nature. My Emile shall 
 
 15 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 read this book before any other. It shall for a long 
 time be his entire library, and shall always hold 
 an honorable place. It shall be the text on which 
 all our discussions of natural science shall be only 
 commentaries. It shall be a test for all we meet 
 during our progress toward a ripened judgment; 
 and so long as our taste is unspoiled, we shall enjoy 
 reading it. What wonderful book is this? Aristotle, 
 Pliny, Buffon? No; it is 'Robinson Crusoe.' '' 
 
 Quick remarks: *'As Rousseau found the root of 
 all evil in the actions of man upon man, he sought 
 to dissever his child of nature as much as possible 
 from his fellow creatures, and to assimilate him to 
 Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 With all its eccentricities, the *'Emile" of Rous- 
 seau probably was, as Quick supposes, the most in- 
 fluential book ever written on the subject of educa- 
 tion. In the language of surveyors, it drew a "cor- 
 rection line," from which true measurements might 
 be made. It awakened a new interest in children 
 and in child life. Here are some of the educational 
 maxims which may be collected from it: 
 
 "All that we have not at our birth, and that we 
 need when grown up, is given us by education." 
 
 "He among us who knows best how to bear the 
 good and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion, 
 the best educated." 
 
 "He who has lived most is not he who has num- 
 
 16 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 bered the most years, but he who has been most 
 truly conscious of what life is." 
 
 "The only habit a child should be allowed to form 
 is to contract no habits whatever." 
 
 "Remember that before you venture undertaking 
 to form a man, you must have made yourself a 
 
 man." 
 
 "The noblest work of education is to make a rea- 
 soning man." 
 
 Of Rousseau's theory of education, Jules Steeg 
 remarks : 
 
 "There is absolutely nothing practical in his sys- 
 tem. It consists in isolating a child from the rest 
 of the world; in creating expressly for him a tutor 
 who is a phenix* among his kind ; in depriving him 
 of father, mother, brothers, and sisters, his compan- 
 ions in study ; in surrounding him with a perpetual 
 charlatanism, under the pretext of following na- 
 ture ; and in showing him only through the veil of 
 a factitious atmosphere the society in which he is 
 to live. And nevertheless, at each step it is sound 
 reason by which we are met. By an astonishing 
 paradox, this whimsicality is full of good sense; this 
 dream overflows with realities; this improbable and 
 chimerical romance contains the substance and the 
 
 *0f this fabulous bird it should be remembered that 
 but a single phenix was supposed to be living at any 
 one time. 
 
 17 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 marrow of a rational and truly modern treatise on 
 pedagogy." 
 
 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Steeg's Rousseau's "Emile," translated by Eleanor 
 Worthlngton. 
 
 Browning's "Educational Theories." 
 Seeley's "History of Education." 
 Skinner's "Schoolmaster in Literature." 
 Rousseau's "Education According to Nature." 
 According to Nature. 
 Hinsdale's "Art of Study." 
 
 IS 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST. 
 
 No other pedagogical topic within recent years 
 has received more attention than that of interest on 
 the part of the pupil. When the pupil is really in- 
 terested in his work, success is easy. The subject 
 has drawn witliin its range apperception and corre- 
 lation, which possess the first importance in the 
 pedagogy of to-day. 
 
 When interest, apperception, and correlation are 
 mentioned, they bring to the mind of the teacher 
 the philosophy of Herbart, the German pedagogist 
 of a century ?.go. 
 
 Herbart sought to construct a tabular grouping 
 of interests in two general classes, each having three 
 subdivisions. The first of the two general classes re- 
 lated to the natural world, and included the sciences 
 which treat of it; the second related to man, and 
 included biography, history, literature, etc. 
 
 Herbart set forth the theory that the develop- 
 ment of the individual is analogous to the develop- 
 ment of the race; that the stages through which 
 the child passes from infancy to maturity corre- 
 sponded to those which humanity has passed in its 
 progress from primeval barbarism to modern civili- 
 zation and culture. Following out this theory, it 
 
 19 
 
TiiVlELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 is held tha.t the child is most interested in that 
 which delighted the childhood of the race; that the 
 youth, at a certain age, enters into the spirit of 
 chivalry, etc. William .James expresses the doc- 
 trine of interest very happily in the following gen- 
 eral statement: 
 
 '^Any object not interesting in itself may become 
 interesting through becoming associated with an 
 object in which an interest already exists. The two 
 associated objects grow, as it were, together. The 
 interesting portion sheds its quality over the whole ; 
 and thus things not interesting in their own right 
 borrow an interest which becomes as real and as 
 strong as that of any natively interesting thing. 
 The odd circumstance is that the borrowing does 
 not impoverish the source, the objects taken to- 
 gether being more interesting, perhaps, than the 
 originally interesting portion was by itself." 
 
 From this general statement of the doctrine, 
 James proceeds to deduce a general rule, in the fol- 
 lowing terms: 
 
 "Begin with the line of his [the pupil's] native 
 interests, and oifer him objects that have some im- 
 mediate connection Avith these. Next, step by step, 
 connect with these first objects and experiences the 
 later objects and ideas which you wish to instill. 
 Associate the new with the old in some natural and 
 telling way, so that the interest, being shed along 
 
 20 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 from point to point, finally suffuses the entire sys- 
 tem of objects of thought." 
 
 The word apperception has been the subject of 
 some ridicule and of considerable irritation among 
 teachers. In modern pedagogy it has not the mean- 
 ing which it possessed in the older philosophy. The 
 newer meaning is set forth in the appendix to 
 Webster's ''International Dictionary." Used in its 
 modern and pedagogical sense, it is a word of great 
 importance to the teacher of to-day. Apperception 
 is "the coalescence of part of a new idea with an 
 old one by modification, as in all cases of recogni- 
 tion, explanation, or translating the unknown by 
 the known." 
 
 Apperception, then, is the acquisition of new 
 knowledge in the light of knowledge already pos- 
 sessed. It is perception of the new in its relation 
 to that which is already known. Correlation, which 
 has a kindred meaning, may be defined as recipro- 
 cal relation, and has to do with subjects which, 
 in their nature, possess this reciprocal relation. 
 
 Dewey finds that the interest of the pupil is de- 
 veloped in his communications ^vith others in the 
 answers to his questionings, in his constructive work, 
 and in the fitting utterance of his thoughts. Dewey 
 remarks as follows: ''Now, keeping in mind these 
 fourfold interests — the interest in conversation, or 
 communication; in inquiry, or finding out things; 
 in making things, or construction; and in artistic 
 
 21 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 expression — we may say that they are the natural 
 resources, the uninvested capital, upon the exer- 
 cise of which depends the active growth of the child." 
 
 Much is said in our time of the ^'many-sided 
 interest" contemplated by the followers of Herbart. 
 The old courses of study in the institutions of higher 
 education were limited and fixed. Much of the 
 courses of to-day is elective. Formerly it was the 
 aim to secure a harmonious development of all the 
 faculties. Now it is the aim to develop in the indi- 
 vidual that which most interests him. He may 
 obtain a smattering of many sciences, and become 
 a tyro in many arts, or he may become the master 
 of a more limited field. 
 
 What of the "many-sided interest" in the work of 
 the grades? 
 
 McMurry says: ''Many have felt that this multi- 
 plicity of interests must lead to scattering and super- 
 ficial knowledge. AA^ith the emphasis of motor ac- 
 tivities which is now made, many-sided interest 
 would seem to point naturally to many-sided and dis- 
 tracting activity, to multiplicity of employments, 
 to that character which in Yankee phrase is desig- 
 nated as Jack of all trades and master of none. It 
 is often said that the old school course, in contrast 
 to this, was very simple, very thorough, and strong 
 in its disciplinary value. And yet the advocates of 
 a return to a narrow curriculum of two generations 
 ago leave out of consideration some of the chief 
 
 22 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 points in the argument. Our children are being 
 educated to live and act and carry on business in a 
 state of society radically dififerent from that of our 
 grandfathers, infinitely more complex and many- 
 sided in its demands upon the citizen. A child edu- 
 cated according to the narrow ideals of the old-fash- 
 ioned schools would be very poorly qualified, if qual- 
 ified at all, to meet the demands of the twentieth 
 century." 
 
 Attention may be voluntary, or it may be invol- 
 untary. Hamilton, in fact, makes three varieties of 
 it. He says: ''I am persuaded that we are fre- 
 quently determined to an act of attention, as to 
 many other acts, independently of our free and de- 
 liberate volition. Attention is of three degrees, or 
 kinds. The first is a mere vital and irresistible act; 
 the second, an act determined by desire, which, 
 though involuntary, may be resisted by our will; 
 the third, an act determined by a deliberate voli- 
 tion." 
 
 It is objected by some critics of the doctrine of 
 interest, that a dependence upon interest fails to 
 develop the will; that the attention secured by the 
 direct exercise of the will power is most needed; 
 that interest is apt to prove changeable, unsteady, 
 erratic, and emotional. As Locke says, the mastery 
 of one's inclinations is the very foundation of vir- 
 tue. The child should studv what he needs to studv, 
 
 23 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 whether it interests him or not; and if it does not 
 interest him at all, so much greater will be the dis- 
 cipline of his will. Often teachers, and writers of 
 text-books as well, have purposely added to the diffi- 
 culties and perplexities of the pupil's study, with the 
 purpose of disciplining the will to command a re- 
 luctant attention. 
 
 McMurry wisely says: '^Interest as a support to 
 the will, and even as a will stimulus, has peculiar 
 advantages. It is not, indeed, desired that chance 
 inclinations and feelings shall take possession of the 
 mind, especially not the disorderly and momentary 
 impulses. * * * The solution of this great 
 problem lies not in eliminating and ignoring either 
 the agreeable or the disagreeable features of train- 
 ing, neither in avoiding the difficulties, nor in sac- 
 rificing the pleasures of study, but in arousing the 
 motives and interests which will assist the w^ill, giv- 
 ing impetus and strength in the direction in which 
 it turns mental action." 
 
 Roark, in his ''Method in Education," points out 
 two ways in which the doctrine of interest may be 
 applied. He says: 
 
 ''All teaching should keep in contact with the 
 learner's interests. This does not mean that teach- 
 ing shall merely folloiv the lead of the learner's in- 
 terests. Some critics of the doctrine of interest have 
 created this fallacy to lend point to their objections. 
 
 24 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 But the doctrine of interest may be applied in prac- 
 tice in two ways, viz.: (1) Teaching should follow 
 the child's normal and healthy interests as far as 
 they go, and (2) should then create, intensify, 
 and direct new ones. It will bear much repeating 
 that the chief problem of the teacher is to keep alive 
 the multiform interests of childhood, and revive 
 any that may have become atrophied. * * * 
 The doctrine of interest does not for a moment pre- 
 clude the idea that drudgery is necessary and health- 
 ful ; that work that is in itself hard and distasteful 
 is a splendid discipline. It should in every case be 
 interpreted to mean, in its application, that the 
 drudgery must be done, the hard and distasteful 
 work gone through thoroughly, because of an abid- 
 ing interest in something to which they lead.'' 
 
 Putnam makes a careful distinction between nat- 
 ural and unnatural stimuli to attention. He says: 
 
 "Stimuli to attention, like stimuli to physical or 
 mental exertion of any sort, may be natural, agree- 
 able, and wholesome, or they may be unnatural, 
 disagreeable, and unwholesome in their ultimate ef- 
 fect. Natural stimuli allure and entice the atten- 
 tion, lay hold upon it with a gentle grasp, and pro- 
 duce no sudden and violent movements. The mind 
 is not forced and dragged along like a resisting child. 
 The activity excited is steady, and grows in inten- 
 sity. The interest and the attention reach their 
 
 25 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 highest pitch by gradual increments, and not by a 
 single unnatural and painful effort. Among such 
 stimuli are the forms, features, qualities, and char- 
 acteristics of external objects properly presented; 
 and also customary acts, movements, modes of ad- 
 dress, and management. Of this kind are the pleas- 
 urable feelings of the soul, the emotions, affections, 
 and desires when not unduly excited, and, indeed, 
 all forms of activity within proper limits. 
 
 "Among the unnatural stimuli, which are usually 
 harmful, are all harsh and violent incitements, 
 strange and frightful objects suddenly presented, 
 strange sights, sounds, and actions; so also are the 
 uncouth, senseless, and almost barbarous devices 
 sometimes resorted to by unskillful teachers and 
 sensational orators. Such stimuli compel attention 
 for the moment; they produce, for a short time, an 
 intense but painful and exhaustive concentration 
 and activity of the mind, followed of necessity by 
 weariness, weakness, and often disgust. The fre- 
 quent use of stimuli of this character renders the 
 mind insensible to the influence of milder and more 
 healthful incitements.'' 
 
 BOOKS POR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Keith's "Elementary Education." 
 
 "Talks to Teachers," by William James. 
 
 "Elements of General Method," by C. A. McMurry. 
 
 "Interest and Education," by De Garmo. 
 
 "The Science of Education," by Herbart. 
 
 "Method in Education," by Roark. 
 
 26 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 III. 
 
 A DISCUSSION OF HERBERT SPENCER'S 
 THEORY OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 The theory of punishment set forth and discussed 
 by the English critic and essayist Herbert Spencer 
 (1820-1905) is to be found in his essay on ''Moral 
 Training." From time immemorial the theory has 
 been recognized in part and acted upon in a meas- 
 ure by parents and teachers. It is the theory of 
 natural consequence, or the penalty which nature 
 exacts for the infraction of her laws, as opposed to 
 artificial or arbitrary punishments for wrong conduct. 
 
 Like all other theories, it is apt to be misunder- 
 stood and misapplied. ^'An ounce of prevention," 
 says the old adage, ''is worth a pound of cure ;" and 
 there are natures to which a penalty more or less 
 remote, in the order of nature, offers no terrors suf- 
 ficient to deter them from evil conduct. The theory, 
 however, contains so much of truth, and is so care- 
 fullv set forth in its limitations, that it is well worth 
 a careful study. 
 
 It is deemed best to present it here, in abridged 
 form, in the exact words of the essay. 
 
 spencer's moral education (Abridged). 
 The great error made by those who discuss ques- 
 tions of juvenile discipline, is in ascribing all the 
 
 27 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 faults and diificulties to the children, and none to 
 the parents. The current assumption respecting 
 family government, as respecting national govern- 
 ment, is that the virtues are with the rulers, and 
 the vices with the ruled. 
 
 We do not hesitate to say that to parental mis- 
 conduct is traceable a great part of the domestic 
 disorder commonly ascribed to the perversity of 
 children. "We do not assert this of the more sym- 
 pathetic and self-restrained, among whom we hope 
 most of our readers may be classed, but we assert it 
 of the mass. 
 
 Evidently, therefore, the general practice of any 
 ideal system of discipline is hopeless: parents are 
 not good enough. 
 
 ^lorover, even were there methods by which the 
 desired end could be at once effected, and even had 
 fathers and mothers sufficient insight, sympathy, 
 and self-command to eanploy these methods con- 
 sistently, it might still be contended that it would 
 be of no use to reform family discipline faster than 
 other things are reformed. What is it that we aim 
 to do? Is it not that education of whatever kind 
 has for its proximate end to prepare a child for the 
 business of life — to produce a citizen who, at the 
 same time that he is well conducted, is also able to 
 make his way in the world? And does not making 
 
 28 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 his way in the world (by which we mean, not the 
 acquirement of weulth, but of the means requisite 
 for properly bringing up a family)— does not this 
 imply a certain fitness for the world as it now is ( 
 And ^ if by any system of culture an ideal human 
 being could be produced, is it not doubtful whether 
 he ^^x)uld be fit for the worid as it now is? 
 
 ''But does not this prove too much?" some one 
 will ask. ''If no system of moral culture can forth- 
 with make children altogether what they should be ; 
 if, even were there a system that would do this, ex- 
 isting parents are too imperfect to carry it out ; and 
 if, even could such a system be successfully carried 
 out, its results would be disastrously incongruous 
 with the present state of society ; does it not follow 
 that a reform in the system now in use is neither 
 practicable nor desirable?" No. It merely follows 
 that reform in domestic government must go on, 
 pari passu with other reforms. It merely follows 
 that methods of discipline neither can be nor should 
 be ameliorated, except by installments. 
 
 *'At any rate then," may rejoin our critic, ''it is 
 clearly useless to set up any ideal standard of family 
 discipline. There can be no advantage in elaborat- 
 ing and recommending methods that are in advance 
 of'^he time." Again we must contend for the con- 
 trary. Just as in the case of political government, 
 though pure rectitude may be at present impracti- 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 cable, it is requisite to know where the right lies, so 
 that the changes we make may be toward the right 
 instead of away from it; so in the case of domestic 
 government, an ideal must be upheld, that there 
 may be gradual approximations to it. We need fear 
 no evil consequences from the maintenance of such 
 an ideal. 
 
 When a child falls, or runs its head against the 
 table, it suffers a pain, the remembrance of which 
 tends to make it more careful for the future; and 
 by an occasional repetition of like experiences, it is 
 eventually disciplined into a proper guidance of its 
 movements. If it lays hold of the fire-bars, thrusts 
 its finger into the candle-flame, or spills boiling water 
 on any part of its skin, the resulting burn or scald 
 is a lesson not easily forgotten. So deep an impres- 
 sion is produced by one or two such events, that 
 afterward no persuasion will induce it again to dis- 
 regard the laws ol its constitution in these ways. 
 
 Now in these and like cases, Nature illustrates to 
 us, in the simplest way, the true theory and practice 
 of moral discipline — a theory and practice which, 
 however miuch they may seem to the superficial like 
 those commonly received, we shall find on exami- 
 nation to differ from them very widel}^ 
 
 Observe, in the first place, that in bodily injuries 
 and their penalties we have misconduct and its con- 
 sequences reduced to their simplest forms. 
 
 30 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 From whatever basis they start, all theories of 
 morality agree in considering that conduct whose 
 total results, immediate and remote, are beneficial, 
 is good conduct; while conduct whose total results, 
 immediate and remote, are injurious, is bad conduct. 
 The happiness or misery caused by it are the ulti- 
 mate standards by which all men judge of behavior. 
 
 Note, in the second place, the character of the 
 punishments by which these physical transgressions 
 are prevented. Punishments, we call them, in the 
 absence of a better word: for they are not punish- 
 ments in the literal sense. They are not artificial 
 and unnecessary inflictions of pain ; but are simply 
 the beneficent checks to actions that are essentially 
 at variance with bodily welfare— checks in the ab- 
 sence of which life would quickly be destroyed by 
 bodily injuries. It is the peculiarity of these penal- 
 ties, if we must so call them, that they are nothing 
 more than the unavoidable consequences of the deeds 
 which they follow ; they are nothing more than the 
 inevitable reactions entailed by the child's actions. 
 
 Let it be further borne in mind that these painful 
 reactions are proportionate to the degree in which 
 the organic laws have been transgressed. A slight 
 accident brings a slight pain, a more serious one, a 
 
 greater pain. 
 
 And then mark, lastly, that these natural re- 
 actions which follow the child's wrong actions are 
 
 31 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped. 
 No threats : but a silent, rigorous performance. 
 
 Still more significant will these general truths ap- 
 pear, when we remember that they hold throughout 
 adult life as well as throughout infantine life. It is 
 by an experimentally-gained knowledge of the 
 natural consequences, that men amd women are 
 checked when they go wrong. 
 
 Every one has heard others confess that only by 
 "dearly bought experience" had they been induced 
 to give up some bad or foolish course of conduct 
 formerly pursued. Every one has heard, in the 
 criticisms passed on the doings of this spendthrift 
 or the other speculator, the remark that advice was 
 useless, and that nothing but ''bitter experience" 
 would produce any effect; nothing, that is, but suf- 
 fering the unavoidable consequences. 
 
 Not only have artificial punishments failed to 
 produce reformation, but they have in many cases 
 increased the criminality. The only successful re- 
 formatories are those privately-established ones 
 which have approximated their regime to the meth- 
 od of Nature — which have done little more than 
 administer the natural consequences of criminal con- 
 duct: the natural consequences being that, by im- 
 prisonment or other restraint, the criminal shall have 
 his liberty of action diminished as much as is need- 
 
 32 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 ful for the safety of society; and that he shall be 
 made to maintain himself while living under this 
 restraint. 
 
 Have we not here, then, the guiding principle of 
 moral education? Must we not infer that the svs- 
 tern so beneficent in its effects, alike during infancy 
 and maturity, will be equally beneficent through- 
 out youth? 
 
 Probably, however, not a few will contend that 
 already most parents do this — that the punishments 
 they inflict are, in the majori!^ of cases, the true 
 consequences of ill-conduct — that parental anger, 
 venting itself in harsh words and deeds, is the result 
 of a child's transgression — and that, in the suffering, 
 physical or moral, which the child is subject to, it 
 experiences the natural reaction of its misbehavior. 
 Along with much error this assertion, doubtless, 
 contains some truth. It is unquestionable thut the 
 displeasure of fathers and mothers is a true conse- 
 quence of juvenile delinquency; and that the mani- 
 festation of it is a normal check upon such delin- 
 quency. 
 
 Thus it is doubtless true that, in so far as the 
 expression of parental feeling is concerned, the prin- 
 ciple of the nntural reaction is always more or less 
 followed. The system of domestic government ever 
 gravitates toward its right form. 
 
 33 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 But now observe two important facts. In the 
 first place, observe that, in states of rapid transition 
 like ours, which witness a long-drawn battle between 
 old and new theories and old and new practices,, the 
 educational methods in use are apt to be consider- 
 ably out of harmony with the times. 
 
 And then observe, in the second place, that the 
 discipline on which we are insisting is not so much 
 the experience of parental approbation or disap- 
 probation, which, in most cases, is only a secondary 
 consequence of a child's conduct; but it is the expe- 
 rience of those results which would naturally flow 
 from the conduct in the absence of parental opinion 
 or interference. The truly instructive and salutary 
 consequences are not those inflicted by parents when 
 they take upon themselves to be Nature's proxies; 
 but they are those inflicted by Nature herself. 
 
 The labor of putting things in order is the true 
 consequence of having put them in disorder. 
 
 If in the nursery the nurse herself, with many 
 grumblings about ^Hiresome little things," etc., un- 
 dertakes the task; if below stairs, the task usually 
 devolves either on one of the elder children or on 
 the house-maid; the transgressor being visited with 
 nothing more than a scolding. 
 
 Having refused or neglected to pick up and put 
 away the things it has scattered about, and having 
 thereby entailed the trouble of doing this on some 
 
 34 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 one else, the child should, on subsequent occasions, 
 be denied the means of giving this trouble. When 
 next it petitions for its toy-box, the reply of its mam- 
 ma should be — ^'The last time you had your toys 
 you left them lying on the floor, and Jane had to 
 pick them up. Jane is too busy to pick up every 
 day the things you leave about; and I cannot do it 
 myself. So that, as you will not put away your 
 toys when you have done with them, I cannot let 
 you have them." This is obviously a natural conse- 
 quence, neither increased nor lessened; and must be 
 so recognized by a child. The penalty comes, too, 
 at the moment when it is most keenly felt. 
 
 In the w^orld the penalty of being behind time is 
 the loss of some advantage that would else have been 
 gained: the train is gone; or the steamboat is just 
 leaving its moorings; or the best things in the mar- 
 ket are sold; or all the good seats in the concert- 
 room are filled. And every one, in cases perpetually 
 occurring, may see that it is the prospective depri- 
 vations entailed by being too late which prevent peo- 
 ple from being too late. Is not the inference ob- 
 vious? Should not these prospective deprivations 
 control the child's conduct also? If Constance is 
 not ready at the appointed time, the natural result 
 is that of being left behind, and losing her walk. 
 
 When a boy, old enough to possess a penknife, 
 uses it so roughly as to snap the blade, or leaves 
 
 35 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 it in the grass by some hedge-side, where he was 
 cutting a stick, a thoughtless parent, or some indul- 
 gent relative, will commonly forthwith buy him an- 
 other; not seeing that, by doing this, a valuable 
 lesson is lost. 
 
 In the first place, right conceptions of cause and 
 effect are early formed; and by frequent and con- 
 sistent experience are eventually rendered definite 
 and complete. Proper conduct in life is much bet- 
 ter guaranteed when the good and evil consequences 
 of actions are rationally understood, than when they 
 are merely believed on authority. 
 
 It is a vice of the common svstem of artificial 
 rewards and punishments, long since noticed by the 
 clear-sighted, that by substituting for the natural 
 results of misbehavior certain threatened tasks or 
 castigations, it produces a radically wrong standard 
 of moral guidance. Having throughout infancy 
 and boyhood always regarded parental or tutorial 
 displeasure as the result of a forbidden action, the 
 youth has gained an established association of ideas 
 between such action and such displeasure, as cause 
 and effect; and consequently when -parents and 
 tutors have abdicated, and their displeasure is not 
 to be feared, the restraint on a forbidden action is 
 in great measure removed. 
 
 Another great advantage of this natural system of 
 discipline is, that it is a system of pure justice, and 
 will be recognized by every child as such. 
 
 36 
 
TIMELY TOPiCS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 Again, the tempers both of parents and children 
 are much less liable to be ruffled under this system 
 than under the ordinary system. Instead of letting 
 children experience the painful results which natur- 
 ally follow from wrong conduct, the usual course 
 pursued by parents is to inflict, themselves, certain 
 other painful results. 
 
 It happens that every transgression comes to be 
 regarded as an offence against themselves, and a 
 cause of anger on their part. Add to which the 
 further irritations which result from taking upon 
 themselves, in the shape of extra labor or cost, those 
 evil consequences which should have been allowed 
 to fall on wTongdoers. Similarly with the children. 
 Penalties which the necessary reaction of things 
 brings round upon them — penalties which are in- 
 flicted by impersonal agency, produce an irritation 
 that is comparatively slight and transient; where- 
 as, penalties which are voluntarily inflicted by a 
 parent, and are afterward remembered as caused 
 by him or her, produce an irritation both greater 
 and more continued. 
 
 Suppose that when a child, who had been forbid- 
 den to meddle with the kettle, spilt some boiling 
 water on its feet, the mother vicariously assumed 
 the scald and gave a blow in place of it; and simi- 
 larly in all other cases. Would not the daily mis- 
 
 37 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 haps be sources of far more anger than now? Would 
 not there be chronic ill-temper on both sides? Yet 
 an exactly parallel policy is pursued in after years. 
 A father who punishes his boy for carelessly or wil- 
 fully breaking a sister's toy, and then himself pays 
 for a new toy, does substantially this same thing — 
 inflicts an artiticial penalty on the transgressor, and 
 takes the natural penalty on himself: his own feel- 
 ings and those of the transgressor being alike need- 
 lessly irritated. If he simply required restitution to 
 be made, he would produce far less heartburning. 
 If he told the boy that a new toy must be bought 
 at his, the boy's, cost, and that his supply of pocket- 
 money must be withheld to the needful extent, 
 there would be much less cause for ebullition of 
 temper on either side ; while in the deprivation after- 
 ward felt, the boy would experience the equitable 
 and salutary consequence. In brief, the system of 
 discipline by natural reactions is less injurious to 
 temper, alike because it is perceived on both sides 
 to be nothing more than pure justice, and because 
 it more or less substitutes the impersonal agency 
 of nature for the personal agency of parents. 
 
 And among the advantages of this method we 
 see — First. That it gives that rational comprehen- 
 sion of right and wrong conduct which results from 
 actual experience of the good and bad consequences 
 caused by them. Second. That the child, suffering 
 
 38 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 nothing more than the painful effects brought upon 
 it by its own wrong actions, must recognize more 
 or less clearly the justice of the penalties. Third. 
 That, recognizing the justice of the penalties, and 
 receiving those penalties through the working of 
 things, rather than at the hands of an individual, 
 its temper will be less disturbed; while the parent, 
 occupying the comparatively passive position of tak- 
 ing care that the natural penalties are felt, will pre- 
 serve a comparative equanimity. And Fourth. That 
 mutual exasperation being thus in great measure 
 prevented, a much happier, and a more influential 
 state of feeling, will exist between parent and child. 
 
 "But what is to be done with more serious mis- 
 conduct?" some will ask. "How is this plan to be 
 carried out when a petty theft has been committed? 
 or when a lie has been told? or when some younger 
 brother or sister has been ill-used?" 
 
 Already we have shown that by letting a child 
 experience simply the painful reactions of its own 
 wrong actions, a parent in great measure avoids as- 
 suming the attitude of an enemy, and escapes be- 
 ing regarded as one ; but it still remains to be shown 
 that where this course has been consistently pursued 
 from the beginning, a strong feeling of active friend- 
 ship will be generated. 
 
 What are the natural consequences, say, of a theft? 
 They are of two kinds — direct and indirect. The 
 
 39 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 direct consequence, as dictated by pure equity, is 
 that of making restitution. An absolutely just rulei 
 (and eyhvY parent should aim to be one) will de- 
 mand that, wherever it is possible, a wrong act shall 
 be undone hy^ a right one : and in the case of theft 
 this implies either the restoration of the thing stolen, 
 or, if it is consumed, then the giving of an equiva- 
 lent: which, in the case of a child, may be effected 
 out of its pocket-money. The indirect and more 
 serious consequence is the grave displeasure of par- 
 ents — a consequence which inevitably follows among 
 all peoples sufficiently civilized to regard theft as a 
 crime; and the manifestation of this displeasure is, 
 in this instance, the most severe of the natural re- 
 actions produced by the wrong action. "But," it 
 will be said, ''the manifestation of parental displeas- 
 ure, either in words or blows, is the ordinary course 
 in these cases: the method leads here to nothing 
 new." Very true. Already we have admitted that, 
 in some directions, this method is spontaneously pur- 
 sued. 
 
 But what it chiefly concerns us here to observe is, 
 that the manifestation of strong parental displeasure, 
 produced by one of these graver offences, will be po- 
 tent for good just in proportion to the warmth of 
 the attachment existing between parent and child. 
 
 By aiming in all cases to administer the natural 
 
 40 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 reactions to your child's actions, you will put an ad- 
 vantageous check upon your own temper. 
 
 Do not, however, seek to behave as an utterly 
 passionless instrument. Eemember that besides the 
 natural consequences of your child's conduct which 
 the working of things tends to bring round on him, 
 your own approbation or disapprobation is also a 
 natural consequence, and one of the ordained agen- 
 cies for guiding him. The terror which we have 
 been combating is that of substituting parental dis- 
 pleasure and its artificial penalties, for the penalties 
 which nature has established. But while it should 
 not be substituted for these natural penalties, it by 
 no means follows that it should not, in some form, 
 accompany them. 
 
 Command only in those cases in which other 
 means are inapplicable, or have failed. But when- 
 ever you do command, command with decision and 
 consistency. 
 
 Let your penalties be like the penalties inflicted 
 by inanimate nature — inevitable. The hot cinder 
 burns a child the first time he seizes it ; it burns him 
 the second time; it burns him the third time; it 
 bums him every time; and he very soon learns not 
 to touch the hot cinder. If you are equally con- 
 sistent — if the consequences which you tell your 
 child will follow certain acts, follow with like uni- 
 formity, he will soon come to respect your laws as 
 
 41 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 he does those of Nature. And this respect, once es- 
 tablished, will prevent endless domestic evils. Of 
 errors in education, one of the worst is that of incon- 
 sistency. 
 
 Bear constantly in mind the truth that the aim 
 of your discipline should be to produce a self-govern- 
 ing being ; not to produce a being to be governed by 
 others. 
 
 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 "Education," by Herbert Spencer. 
 
 "The Making of Character," by McCunn. 
 
 42 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE USE OF THE STUDY PERIOD. 
 
 "What one carries away from Rome," says the 
 proverb, ''depends upon what one carries to Rome." 
 The force of this saying is obvious. It is likewise 
 true thut the benefit which the pupil will derive from 
 his use of the study period will depend very largely 
 upon the spirit which he brings to it, and the prepa- 
 ration which has been made for it. This preparation 
 concerns both the teacher and the pupil, for each 
 has a duty in reference to it. 
 
 The manner of study is thus commented upon 
 
 by Page: 
 
 ''It is of quite as much importance how we study 
 as what we study. Indeed, I have thought that 
 much of the diiference among men could be traced 
 to their different habits of study formed in youth. 
 A large portion of our scholars study for the sake 
 of preparing to recite the lesson. They seem to have 
 no idea of any object beyond recitation. The con- 
 sequence is that they study mechanically. They en- 
 deavor to remember phraseology rather than princi- 
 ples; they study the book, not the subject. Let any 
 one 'enter our schools and see the scholars engaged 
 in preparing their lessons. Scarcely one will be 
 
 43 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 seen who is not repeating over and over again the 
 words of the text, as if there were a saving charm 
 in repetition. Observe the same scholars at recita- 
 tion, and it is a struggle of the memory to recall 
 the forms of words. The vacant countenance too 
 often indicates that these are v/ords without mean- 
 ing. This difficulty is very much increased if the 
 teacher is confined to the text-book during recita- 
 tion.'^ 
 
 Roark, in discussing the preparation of the les- 
 son by the pupil, makes note of the same tendency. 
 He says: 
 
 ''On the part of the pupil, preparation is the proc- 
 ess of acquiring and assimilating the portion of sub- 
 ject-matter marked off in the assignment of the les- 
 son. Too often the student gets no farther than 
 mere acquisition, and simply memorizes the lesson. 
 Assimilation is difficult for the pupil, and testing as- 
 similation is difficult for the teacher. Pupils have 
 been known even to memorize verbally the dem- 
 onstration of a theorem in geometry! One of the 
 first duties of the teacher is to show the pupil how 
 to prepare a lesson — how to direct effort, and to 
 economize time; how to exert thought power, and 
 to queslion iuuiseli and his texi-buoK vvniie he is 
 studying; and especially, how to enjoy the processes 
 of learning facts and understanding them. Under 
 this sort of direction the pupil will find that he 
 
 44 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 can economize time and effort, can 'get the lesson' 
 better and more quickly, by going over it not more 
 than three times. '^ 
 
 This general statement of the teacher's duty in 
 preparing the pupil to make the most of the study 
 period is reinforced by Hinsdale, who offers spe- 
 cific suggestions as follows: 
 
 ''Before assigning the lesson for the next recita- 
 tion, the teacher should carefully inquire whether 
 the pupils need assistance in preparing it, and, if 
 the answer is in the affirmative, he should furnish 
 such assistance before they leave the recitation 
 benches. Words in the lesson miay need to be ex- 
 plained, points of difficulty to be set in a proper 
 light, or important features to be pointed out. Fre- 
 quent are the cases where a hint, or two, a few sug- 
 gestions, a short explanation, taking perhaps three 
 or five minutes, will save the class from falling to 
 pieces or from "flunking," as the college expression 
 is, at the next recitation. Much depends upon the 
 relation of the last lesson to the new lesson. Sub- 
 jects and lessons as presented in text-books do not 
 always ascend by an easy grade, at least as meas- 
 ured by the pupil's ability; some subjects and les- 
 sons hardly admit of such presentation." 
 
 The time of the study period for a particular les- 
 son may be fixed in the school programme or it may 
 be left largely to the choice of the pupil, as is often 
 
 45 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 the case in the more advanced grades. Roark holds 
 that the best time for the preparation of a new les- 
 son is just after it has been assigned; that is to say, 
 just at the close of the recitation of the previous 
 lesson in the same branch of study. At this time the 
 pupil will bring to his work any enthusiasm which 
 the recitation may have awakened, and he will have 
 fresh in mind the hints which it may have con- 
 tained relative to what the study may bring out. 
 Probably, however, most pupils would prefer to have 
 the work of study immediately precede the next 
 recitation, so that the work itself will be fresh in 
 the mind when they have need to make use of it 
 in reciting. The suggestion of Roark carries much 
 weight. Intensified study of a subject immediately 
 preceding a recitation upon it, is apt to be a process 
 of ^'cramming.'' It is better that there shall inter- 
 vene between the study and the recitation a period 
 in which the new knowledge acquired may be di- 
 gested and assimilated. 
 
 Hinsdale gives three rules to be followed by the 
 pupil in ''attacking the lesson." 'The first rule for 
 the guidance of the pupil," he says, "is to find out 
 the subject of the lesson. What is it all about? is the 
 first question to be asked. * * * 
 
 "The next rule is that the pupil should seize the 
 leading subdivisions of the lesson. * ♦ * 
 
 46 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 ^'The next fact to be stated is that most lessons 
 present a few points which are so central that they 
 are keys to the whole subject; while the next rule is 
 that the pupil should seek to discover such points and 
 make them his own. We are using a military meta- 
 phor. When General Grant had carried Missionary 
 Ridge, the whole Confederate position far to the 
 right and far to the left fell easily and speedily into 
 his hands." 
 
 The same author impresses the fact that the pupil 
 must know when a lesson is prepared, and what is 
 required in the study of it. ^'Knowing about a thing 
 is not the same as knowing the thing. A pupil may 
 have considerable knowledge about the crusades, or 
 about geysers, and not have a clear idea of what a 
 crusade was or a geyser is." 
 
 Roark describes the ''going over the lesson" for 
 the three times, and sets for the purpose in view for 
 each of these times. He says of the pupil : 
 
 ^'The first time, he looks through the whole les- 
 son in the light of the preliminary drill his teacher 
 has given him ; gains thus a general, comprehensive 
 idea of the lesson-whole, in accordance with the ana- 
 lytic principle, ^from the whole to its parts' ; refreshes 
 his memory on the last lesson and its connection with 
 the present one ; sees at what points the lesson touches 
 his own experiences; and notes the parts that are 
 likely to require the hardest study for their mastery. 
 
 47 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 "The second time, he gets the lesson as he goes 
 along, mastering it step by step, putting its facts into 
 the memory and weighing their relations and the 
 reasons for their being what they are, challenging 
 the book's statements, looking up other authorities 
 than the text, and forming his own opinions. Pupils 
 should be encouraged at first, and later required, to 
 go beyond the limit of the text-book in their prepara- 
 tion of lessons. 
 
 'The third time, he glances the lesson over again, 
 just before recitation, to revivify and fix the salient 
 points, and to make sure he can sustain himself in 
 the coming lesson-discussion with the teacher." 
 
 Among the aids to the pupil in studying his lesson, 
 a really good Dictionary is of first importance. The 
 time for learning an unfamiliar word is when it is 
 brought to the notice of the pupil, in reading or in 
 spoken discourse. If it occurs in a lesson, that lesson 
 is not really learned unless the pupil has mastered 
 the word — its meaning and use, its spelling and its 
 pronunciation. The more advanced pupil should 
 note also its etymology, and any peculiarity relat- 
 ing to it. 
 
 There are few pupils who fully understand the use 
 to be made of the Dictionary. In the first place, the 
 order of the meanings, as given, should be under- 
 stood. The order in Webster^s "Intern atiaiiar* is his- 
 torical, the original, or oldest, meaning being given 
 
 48 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 first. This is the true, logical order, although the old 
 meaning may be now wholly obsolete. Thus the first 
 meaning of the word starve is to die, from whatever 
 cause. The first, or oldest, meaning of transpire is to 
 sweat. The first, or oldest, meaning of prevent is to 
 precede or to go before. 
 
 Many pupils do not note the difference between 
 obsolete and obsolescent, and the corresponding dif- 
 ference between the abbreviations of these words. 
 Many pupils do not note the delicate differentiation 
 that may be made between synonyms, and have no 
 idea of the meaning of the abbreviation cf., as used 
 in the DictionTiry. It is not safe to give a phonetic 
 pronunciation to proper names about which there is 
 any doubt in the mind of the pupil. If the Diction- 
 ary is at hand, he can ascertain the correct pronun- 
 ciation, and thus eliminate any doubt and any dan- 
 ger of embarrassment in reference thereto. 
 
 The Dictionary not only gives the spelling and 
 pronunciation of many hundreds of biographical 
 namies, but also indicates something of the life of the 
 leading characters in history, in art, and in author- 
 ship. It contains, likewise, a gazetteer, and many 
 other features which will throw light upon the les- 
 sons of the pupil in school. 
 
 The Dictionary should always be accessible to the 
 pupil during the study period, and he should be 
 thoroughly accustomed to its use. 
 
 49 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 Good maps, likewise, should be accessible during 
 the period of study. The lesson is not learned if geo- 
 graphical terms connected with it are not understood 
 wdth full sufficiency for the purpose in hand; and 
 even beyond this it is not likely that the pupil will 
 wander too far afield if he follow^s out geographical 
 inquiries suggested indirectly by the lesson. 
 
 A good library will offer many additional aids to 
 the way of reference books; but Dictionaries and 
 maps are simply indispensable to good work by the 
 pupil, though it does little good to supply them if 
 the pupil be not trained to use them and habituated 
 to consulting them whenever occasion requires. 
 
 Lesson notes should be taken by the pupil upon 
 tablets or in memorandum books. New words should 
 be written, for practice, and statements of notable 
 facts should be summarized and recorded. Only a 
 general statement as to this is needed in this general 
 presentation of the work of the study period. Specific 
 written exercises are of course required in their 
 respective subjects. 
 
 To summarize, what is most needed for an effec- 
 tive and fruitful employment of the study period is 
 that the pupil shall acquire the habit of clear analy- 
 sis, correct reasoning, and industry, directed to an in- 
 telligent purpose ; and that the teacher and the pupil 
 shall co-operate for the attainment of this end. 
 
 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Roark's "Method of Education." 
 Bagley's "Educative Processes." 
 Hinsdale's "Art of Study." 
 
 50 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE PANAMA CANAL. 
 
 The construction of an inter-oceanic ship canal 
 across the Isthmus of Panama, which has been un- 
 dertaken by the Government of the United States, 
 is the most colossal engineering enterprise in history. 
 
 The length of the canal, including the extensions in 
 the harbors, is to be over forty-nine miles ; the depth, 
 forty-five feet; and the breadth, from two hundred 
 feet (through the deepest cut) to five hundred feet 
 and more. The highest level of the canal is eighty- 
 five feet above the ocean level. 
 
 The course of the canal pierces a ridge of rocky 
 land three hundred and thirty-three feet in height 
 above the sea level. Elsewhere it passes through a 
 sw^mp where it requires great levees to protect it 
 from the in-flowing tide water. Incidental to the 
 construction of the canal itself is the formation of 
 an artificial lake by means of a colossal dam, to im- 
 pound the waters of the river Chagres at Gatun, near 
 the Atlantic shore. This will prevent the periodic 
 flooding of the river, and, by means of sluices, will 
 supply whatever amount of water may be needed for 
 operating the locks, and for other purposes in time 
 of drought. 
 
 51 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 The dam is to be seventeen hundred feet in length, 
 and, with the resulting expense of changing the rail- 
 way line, will cost perhaps twelve million dollars. 
 The reservoir thus formed will be known as Gatun 
 Lake. 
 
 Another artificial lake is to be formed on the Pa- 
 cific side of the summit, by the construction of three 
 smaller dams in the streams about Sosa Hill, and 
 will be known as Sosa Lake. 
 
 In addition to the construction of the mighty 
 dams required to form these lakes, the plan includes 
 the diversion of rivers from their present channels, 
 and the construction of enormous locks. 
 
 This stupendous canal enterprise has been under- 
 taken with a full realization of its magnitude and 
 of its difficulties, and in the face of the fact that 
 France, the great nation which had previously made 
 the attempt, utterly failed in it. We are seeking to 
 profit by the experience of that failure, and to avoid 
 the mistakes that were made. Warned by the fright- 
 ful mortality which attended the constiniction of the 
 Panama railway following this general route, half a 
 century ago, and by the French experiment, the 
 Canal authorities have labored to supply in advance 
 all the possible hygienic conditions for the laborers 
 in the matter of food, rest, and comfort, with hos- 
 pitals and expert medical attendance for the sick. 
 Noting the successive failures of different national- 
 
 62 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 ities employed to perform the work heretofore, they 
 are carefully choosing their men from those best 
 fitted to endure the ordeal in the trying climate and 
 under the severe conditions experienced in Panama. 
 Jamaican negroes and Mongolian coolies seem to 
 offer the most promise. 
 
 Believing that true economy dictates a very large 
 expenditure for machinery, appliances, and tempo- 
 rary tracks, the authorities may make use simul- 
 taneously of eighty or perhaps even a hundred large 
 steam shovels, though it will require more than two 
 years to place these in position for operating. For 
 the removal of the mass of earth and rock excavated, 
 w^hich offers a very serious problem, probably three 
 miles of temporary railway track will be required as 
 an auxiliary to each of these steam shovels, making 
 from two hundred and forty to three hundred miles 
 of expensive building, no part of which is likely to 
 be permanent. With these temporary lines of rail 
 must be supplied a great number of cars of special 
 construction, and of locomotive engines. 
 
 Already in the great Culebra cut the crest has 
 been lowered from two hundred and thirty-three 
 feet above the sea level to a height of only one hun- 
 dred and seventy-three feet. In other words, the 
 channel is already excavated to a depth of one hun- 
 dred and sixty feet through this seemingly impen- 
 etrable mass of rocky material. 
 
 53 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 The length of time that will be required to com- 
 plete the work is a matter of estimate. It was held 
 that the construction of a sea-level canal, as at first 
 contemplated, would require about fifteen years 
 from the time when the Commission should enter 
 upon its work. Perhaps the lock canal, now con- 
 templated, including the construction of the locks, 
 will not require a period longer than nine years 
 from the active beginning of the work. 
 
 It should be remembered that the use of the words 
 east and west in describing the canal are apt to be 
 confusing; for, owing to the peculiar configuration 
 of the isthmus the Atlantic lies to the westward 
 mid the Pacific to the eastward, where the canal line 
 is drawn. 
 
 The work of constructing the canal is as yet in its 
 inception. Its progress will be a matter of interesting 
 current history for years to come. A brief resume of 
 the leading facts in the history of the canal project 
 thus fur is as follows : 
 
 The Suez Canal (which was opened in 1869) hav- 
 ing proved a success, the great French engineer und 
 promoter who had undertaken it, Ferdinand de Les- 
 seps, turned his attention to the Isthmus of Pana- 
 ma, with the purpose of conducting there a similar 
 French enterprise. The work began under great 
 disadvantages in 1879, tmd came to a disastrous ter- 
 mination fourteen years later. Then came the op- 
 
 54 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 portunity of the United States. We were bound by 
 an agreement with GreBt Britain known as the Clay- 
 ton-Bulwer treaty (1850) in reference to a projected 
 international canal through the territory of Nic- 
 aragua. By agreement this treaty was abrogated 
 in 1903, and the Hay-Herran treaty was negotiated 
 at Washington between the United States and the 
 Republic of Colombia, to which Panama then be- 
 longed. By this treaty we were to secure the right 
 to construct the canal across the isthmus, we guar- 
 anteeing to pay to Colombia the sum of ten million 
 dollars on the completion of the work. 
 
 The Colombian Government, hoping doubtless to 
 exact a larger sum from us, refused to ratify the 
 treaty. By a sudden coup, the people of Panama 
 declared their independence, which was immediate- 
 ly recognized by the United States, and entered into 
 a liberal treaty with us, in accordance with which 
 we secured in perpetuity 'Hhe use, occupation, and 
 control" of a Canal Zone extending five miles on 
 each side of the canal line, from the Atlantic east- 
 ward to the Pacific, together with a concession of 
 further authority and rights in case it should be 
 needed to exercise them for the conservation of 
 American interests in the isthmus. 
 
 1899 Congress had authorized President McKin- 
 ley to appoint an ^'Isthmian Canal Commission," 
 
 65 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 to make an investigation as to the most practicable 
 and feasible route for an inter-oceanic canal, to be 
 the property of the United States. 
 
 The choice between the routes offered, respective- 
 ly, by Panama and Nicaragua, was for some time a 
 matter of much controversy at home. It w^as set- 
 tled by the treaty with Panama, related above, which 
 is known as the Hay-Varilla treaty. It remained to 
 purchase of the French Canal Company (which had 
 been reorganized) all its rights and property in the 
 Canal Zone. This was effected by the payment of 
 forty million dollars, which amount whs authorized 
 by Congress and turned over to the company by Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt. 
 
 A Canal Commission of seven members was ap- 
 pointed, and General W. H. Taft, Secretary of War, 
 was directed to undertake the supervision of the 
 work. 
 
 The Commission went to Panama in April, 1904. 
 It concerned itself with the preliminary work of 
 investigations and plans until 1905, when the Presi- 
 dent secured the resignation of all the members, 
 and turned the work over to a committee of three 
 of the seven. Chairman Shonts being given the 
 largest discretion. Judge Magoon was appointed Gov- 
 ernor of the Canal Zone and Minister to the Repub- 
 lic of Panama. 
 
 Whether the work of constricting the canal shall 
 be performed in parts by companies of contractors, 
 
 56 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 whether directly by the Commission reorganized, 
 or whether directly by the Administration, acting 
 through one or more of its Departments, or through 
 a committee appointed by the President, is not yet 
 fully determined. Perhaps various plans may be 
 successively tried in the long time required for the 
 completion of the vast enterprise. The resignation 
 of the members of the Commission, and the later 
 withdrawal of some of the President's committee, 
 have added to the uncertainties of the situation. 
 
 As one of our nation's ''detached possessions," 
 the Canal Zone should be made familiar to the pu- 
 pils in all our schools. It will be well for the teacher 
 to caution them against the confusion which is apt 
 to arise from the use of the words east and west in 
 reference to the canal, and to show clearly the con- 
 figuration of the isthmus and the position of the 
 canal route with reference to the two oceans. It will 
 be well for the pupils to note the location of the cities 
 at the terminals — Colon and Panama — since there 
 will be occasion to read many news dispatches from 
 them in future; also to remember that Colon is but 
 a new name for the old city of Aspinwall, with 
 the old name of which their parents were probably 
 familiar in years gone by. 
 
 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Pepper's "Panama to Patagonia — The Isthmian Canal." 
 Forbes-Lindsay's "Panama — The Isthmus and Canal." 
 President Roosevelt's Special Message of Dec. 17, 1906. 
 Recent volumes of magazines and newspapers. 
 
 57 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 RECLAIMING OF ARID LANDS IN THE WEST. 
 
 The West is divided from the East by a boundary 
 line which is not imaginary. It is a plain mark on 
 the face of the earth, and no man made it. It is 
 the place where the region of assured rainfall ends, 
 and the arid region begins. There have formerly 
 been some costly doubts about the precise location 
 of this line, but these have been dispelled by expe- 
 rience; and the lesson learned in hardship and im- 
 pressed by disaster is learned for all time. The mo- 
 mentous boundary line is that of the ninety-seventh 
 meridian, which cleaves in twain the Dakotas, Ne- 
 braska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. East of this 
 line there is a rainfall which is accepted as reliable, 
 though there are alternate disasters of drought and 
 flood, varying in their effects from short crops to 
 total failures. — William E. Smythe. 
 
 Since the ninety-seventh meridian west from 
 Greenwich is almost midway between the Atlantic 
 and the Pacific, it will be seen that half of our na- 
 tional domain lies within what is called the arid 
 region; and since the western half of the country 
 must depend very largely upon artificial supplies 
 of water for fertility and value, the vast importance 
 of the subject of irrigation becomes apparent to all. 
 
 58 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 The arid region was formerly known as the Great 
 American Desert. It was supposed to be largely 
 uninhabitable and valueless. With the building of 
 railways to the coast, the desert began to be re- 
 claimed. The theory was advanced that rainfall 
 follows the cultivation of the soil, and that a patient 
 effort at farming would be rewarded by an increase 
 in the quantity of water precipitated from the clouds. 
 This proved to be largely a delusion; for while the 
 rainfall at times in the reclaimed areas might prove 
 fairly sufficient for agricultural purposes, it could 
 not be depended upon. There were ruinous times 
 of drought, extending over a period of years. 
 
 The American farmer cannot take the chances of 
 occasional results from continued labor and invest- 
 ment of capital. The principal dependence of the 
 arid region in future must be upon irrigation; and 
 this art has now acquired a prominence never be- 
 fore known in human history. 
 
 WHAT IRRIGATION W^ILL ACCOMPLISH. 
 
 It is a popular error that desert land reclaimed 
 through irrigation is at best inferior to the land 
 which receives an adequate amount of rainfall. As 
 a matter of fact, desert lands thus reclaimed are the 
 most fertile in the world. There are certain compo- 
 nents of the soil that promote its fertility, which are 
 washed away and wasted by rains, but which re- 
 main in the arid regions, thus giving to irrigated 
 
 59 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 lands a positive superiority to the lands of almost 
 ideal rainfall. It has not been supposed that the 
 western half of the United States would ever become 
 thickly settled, as the eastern half has been. There 
 are many, however, who now declare that the west- 
 ern half will prove actually the better of the two. 
 Irrigated lands will always be the possession of small 
 farmers, with diversified crops. These lands are 
 adapted to '^intensified production." The vast agri- 
 cultural estates of the regions in which rainfall 
 abounds will be wanting, but they are not so desir- 
 able for the community at large. Small farmers 
 develop neighborhoods and neighborly feeling. They 
 promote the equalization of wealth. 
 
 THE EARLIEST EXPERIMENT OF IRRIGATION IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 The first demonstration of the practical value of 
 irrigation in reclaiming the American Desert was 
 given by the Mormons in Utah. Late in July in 
 the year 1847, the first caravan of these religious 
 enthusiasts reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake. 
 It was a beautiful scene that they beheld; but the 
 lake before them was a dead sea, and the land about 
 it was so hard that the steel point of a plow could 
 scarcely cleave it. The surface was powdered with 
 alkali. 
 
 With the quickness of genius the Mormon leader 
 directed that a canal be duo-, to carry and spread over 
 
 60 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 a level tract the waters of a large creek which flowed 
 into the lake. This was done with great difficulty, 
 but the success achieved was instantaneous and mar- 
 velous. Utah is to-day a hive of industry, and all 
 its fertility is due to the artificial supply of water for 
 its farms. 
 
 THE GREELEY EXPERIMENT. 
 
 'The Union Colony of Colorado" was organized 
 at a public meeting held in Cooper Institute, New 
 York, over which Horace Greeley presided, in 1869. 
 The settlement was begun in the following year, 
 on the railway line then in process of construction 
 to connect Denver with Cheyenne. From the first, 
 the dependence upon irrigation was recognized, und 
 the company constructed irrigating canals and 
 connections at the very outset. These cost twenty 
 tim^es the amount calculated upon, but they proved 
 remunerative in the long run, though the colonists 
 were sadly mistaken at first in supposing that the 
 region vras adapted to fruit culture rather than to 
 general farming. 
 
 It was fortunate for the Greeley colonists that 
 their water supply was not suffered to pass into the 
 hands of a private company — a monopoly. As the 
 colonists had shared in the great expense of the ir- 
 rigating works, they likewise shared in the returns 
 from these; for while the farms vv^ere owned by in- 
 
 61 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 dividuals, the water supply was the property of the 
 company as a whole. 
 
 Following the examples set by the Mormons in 
 Utah, and the Colorado colonists at Greeley, various 
 communities in all the States of the arid region have 
 developed plans for the artificial supply of water. 
 These plans have been various both as to the means 
 of obtaining and distributing the water, and as to 
 the ownership and control of the supply. 
 
 THE GARDEN CITY EXPERIMENT. 
 
 In Finney county, Kansas, wheat farming sud- 
 denly developed to a large extent in the late '70's, 
 and a grist mill was planned. A ditch was dug to 
 divert a portion of the water of the Arkansas river 
 to the mill site; but the mill itself was not built, 
 for the grent sowing of wheat — some thousands of 
 acres — came to nothing. This was in the drought 
 of '78. The farmers generally gave up in despair. 
 One of the number, however, whose land adjoined 
 the ditch, secured permission to make use of its idle 
 waters, and with astonishing results. "Kansas," 
 says Smythe, "is the mother of irrigation on the 
 plains." Within twelve years, nearly three millions 
 was expended in the construction of irrigating 
 canals, which aggregated some hundreds of miles in 
 length. Then a new obstacle arose. The Arkansas 
 river, on which these canals depended for their wa- 
 ter supply, comes down from the State of Colorado; 
 
 62 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 and the people of that State began to use so much of 
 the water in its upper courses that the Kansas sup- 
 ply was cut off, and the large expenditure for canals 
 was rendered useless. 
 
 Again the people of Finney county, in the vicin- 
 ity of Garden City, experimented. They found that 
 water could be pumped from wells of very slight 
 depth. By means of windmills located on the most 
 ele\^ted portions of their farms, they were able in- 
 dividually, to raise and distribute the water required 
 by their fields. Smythe states that an investment of 
 two hundred dollars in such a place will suffice for 
 the permanent watering of about ten acres. This 
 plan is followed very generally in the arid portions 
 of the State, wherever the supply of water exists near 
 the surface of the ground. 
 
 IRRIGATION ON THE PLAINS. 
 
 Nebraska is better supplied than Kansas with riv- 
 ers from which irrigating canals can take the needed 
 water. Some dependence is likewise placed upon 
 wells, though the water is apt to lie at a considerable 
 distance below the surface, and often is obtained 
 only with much difficulty and at large expense. In 
 the Dakotas much dependence is placed upon ar- 
 tesian wells. Where water is taken from the rivers, 
 pumping is generally necessary, since the beds of the 
 
 63 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 streams are deep, and much of the country is almost 
 as level as a floor. There are thousands of artesian 
 wells in these twin States. 
 
 IRRIGATION AS A NATIONAL POLICY. 
 
 In January of 1901, Representative (later Sena- 
 tor) Francis G. Newlands, of Nevada, introduced in 
 Congress a bill w^hich, after much discussion and 
 some amendment, became a la^v in the following 
 year. This law authorizes the Secretary of the Inte- 
 rior to apply moneys derived i'rom the sale of public 
 lands to the construction of canals and reservoirs 
 for irrigation purposes. The law applies to sixteen 
 States and Territories. Smythe thus sums up the 
 leading features of the measure : "Provision for the 
 withdrawal from entry, in the discretion of the 
 Secretary of the Interior, of all public lands required 
 for reservoirs or canals, or susceptible of irrigation 
 from proposed works ; pro-rating the cost among the 
 lands irrigated, and providing for the repayment of 
 the amount to the reclamation found in ten annual 
 instalments, making the water right perpetually ap- 
 purtenant to the land, wdth beneficial use the basis, 
 the measure, and the limit of the right; providing 
 that land could be taken only under the homestead 
 law, with its requirements for actual settlement; 
 and permitting the sale of water rights to land in 
 private ownership, but only in small tracts." 
 
 64 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 In the first annual message of President Roose- 
 velt to Congress, in 1901, he advocated some gov- 
 ernmental measure for securing irrigation in the 
 arid lands. The Newlands law was signed by the 
 President on June 27, 1902. 
 
 THE TRUCKEE-CARSON WORKS. 
 
 By July, 1905, the funds available for govern- 
 mental irrigation works had reached nearly thirty 
 millions of dollars. The first great experiment of 
 this nature was made in Nevada — the State in which 
 the need seemed greatest. A canal was built to di- 
 vert the water from the Truckee river to the Carson 
 river, a distance of more than thirty miles. A great 
 dam in the Carson is the distributing point. It is 
 estimated that seven years more will be required to 
 complete the entire plant, which is expected to 
 irrigate 375,000 acres, and which will cost probably 
 nine million dollars. 
 
 OTHER GOVERNMENTAL PROJECTS. 
 
 The Interior Department is constantly making 
 investigations and developing plans for other gov- 
 ernmental irrigation works. These plans are not 
 always divulged until completed. 
 
 Among the plans now under way are those of the 
 Salt river (at the Roosevelt dam), in Arizona; of the 
 Klamath, in Oregon; of the Minidoka, in Idaho; 
 of the Milk river, in Montana; of the Hondo, in 
 
 65 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 New Mexico; of Bismarck, in North Dakota; of the 
 North Platte, in Nebraska and Wyoming; of the 
 Shoshone, in Wyoming; of the Belief ourche, in 
 South Dakota ; of the Malheur, in Oregon ; and of 
 the Colorado, in Arizona and Southern California. 
 
 A singular and disastrous experience in what has 
 been known as the Colorado Desert illustrates the 
 difficulties and dangers that may sometimes be in- 
 curred in carrying out plans for irrigation on a large 
 scale. The Colorado Desert occupies a peculiar sink, 
 or hollow, which lies below the level of the sea. 
 Doubtless at one time it was connected with the 
 sea; but the connection was cut off in some manner 
 by a rise of the ground to the south, and the waters 
 of the basin soon disappeared by evaporation. The 
 region of this desert lies across the south line of 
 California, extending for many miles into Mexico. 
 South of the State line it reaches the high western 
 bank of the Colorado river, which separates it from 
 Arizona. 
 
 A sluice, fifty feet wide, was cut in the west bank 
 of the Colorado, in Mexican territory, by a private 
 corporation, with a view to making use of the water 
 through the wide stretch of desert to the northward. 
 A successful experiment had been previously made 
 in taking water from the Colorado river many miles 
 above; and the region irrigated by means of it had 
 proved of wonderful fertility. The Southern Pacific 
 
 66 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 Railway passed through the region, and various 
 prosperous towns w^ere springing up. 
 
 The new enterprise, however, was disastrous in 
 its results. In May, 1905, the vast flood of water 
 caused by the melting of the snows on the moun- 
 tains swept away the abutments of the sluice, and 
 spread out in a waterfall nearly three-quarters of 
 a mile wide. The flood of waters defied all efforts at 
 control, and formed the ^'Salton Sea,'* which has 
 been an engrossing topic of current interest for the 
 past two years. Towns have been swept away and 
 buried deep beneath the waters. The Southern Pa- 
 cific Railway has been compelled to move its track 
 many miles, and repeatedly. The "Sea" has at- 
 tained a length of sixty-five miles, and a width of 
 about forty miles. Whether the efforts now making 
 to stop its further expansion shall be successful or 
 not, remains to be seen. This experience offers a 
 caution to be observed in the construction of dams 
 and sluices, where the waters are to be impounded in 
 great quantities for economic distribution. 
 
 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Smythe's "Conquest of Arid America." 
 Recent volumes of magazines and newspapers. 
 
 «7 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE VALUE OF HANDWORK IN PUBLIC 
 
 SCHOOLS. 
 
 The success achieved by the kindergarten in 
 America naturally awakened the suggestion that the 
 training of the hand in various forms of mechanism 
 might well be extended to the primary departments 
 of the public schools. 
 
 The feasibility of this was demonstrated in the 
 schools of La Porte, Ind., in the work of W. N. Llail- 
 mann, who set forth in his book of ''Primary Meth- 
 ods" a scheme of object teaching and manual train- 
 ing for the primary grades. In the preface to this 
 book, which was issued twenty years ago, he said : 
 
 ''The advocates of industrial training are met with 
 the objection that the school is already loaded down 
 wdth work, and that it will be ruinous to the child 
 to add fresh burdens. The hand training here pro- 
 posed is not open to this objection. It removes bur- 
 dens. It enables the child to gain the knowledge 
 which the current subjects of school instruction rep- 
 resent, in a manner more suited to his tastes and 
 powers; in a complete, all-sided, active, ideal child 
 life, in which he is upheld and strengthened by the 
 constant joy of success, the steady glow of growing 
 power. '^ 
 
 68 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 William J. Shoup, of the city schools of Dubuque, 
 la., uttered a strong appeal for the training of the 
 hand in his book of "Didactics,'^ which was widely 
 studied by teachers in the last decade. 
 
 ''What," he asked, ''has the kindergarten to do 
 with the work of the ordinary school?" "Much, in 
 many ways," he answered. "First of all, it illustrates 
 the great principle of the necessity of making school 
 work attractive to the little learners. * * * jf 
 it succeeds in impressing the truth that activity is 
 one of the Heaven-implanted laws of childhood, and 
 induces our teachers to furnish employment for 
 each little pair of willing hands, it will bring joy 
 and gladness to many a childish heart, and engender 
 such a love for school that study will be a delight." 
 
 Shoup was disposed to deem handwork even more 
 essential in the regular school work than in the kin- 
 dergartens. He said, "It is believed by many of 
 the most thoughtful educators that the highest util- 
 ity of the kindergarten system is attained when it is 
 applied in connection with primary school work, 
 rather than when entirely divorced from it." 
 
 The value of the object lesson had long been recog- 
 nized; but its true nature and use, he contended, 
 had not been fully grasped. It was understood by 
 many to mean simply the holding up of an object 
 and talking about it. 
 
 69 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 ^'The real object of these exercises/' he said, 
 ^'should be to induce the children to see with their 
 own eyes, hear with their own ears, taste with their 
 own tongues, then idealize these perceptions, and 
 give their conceptions expression in accurate lan- 
 guage." 
 
 Shoup dissented from the common theory that 
 one of the prime purposes of the object lesson is to 
 cultivate the senses of the child. On this question 
 he said: ''It is not the province of the object lesson 
 to provide our pupils with the senses themselves — 
 nature usually does this — but rather to give them 
 skill in their use, to train them to give heed to the 
 impressions which are made in the mind through 
 the senses — to cultivate, in short, the conceptive 
 rather than the perceptive faculties, though of course 
 this must be done through the perceptive faculties.'' 
 
 The work begun by John Sheridan Neligh in the 
 ' 'Primary Industrial School" at Columbus, Ga., had 
 in view the training of the hands of young children, 
 especially in those forms of activity which add to the 
 comfort and beauty of the home ; and as an experi- 
 ment among the pupils of an industrial class, whose 
 means for furnishing the home were apt to be mea- 
 ger, it attracted wide attention. This was, in part, 
 an adaptation of the slojd system of the Scandina- 
 vian lands. Indeed the word slojd (handicraft) has 
 become Americanized under the form of sloyd. 
 
 70 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 "Manual training in the public schools of Europe," 
 says Ham, in his notable book entitled "Mind 
 and Hand/' "can scarcely be called educational, 
 since the pupils usually make articles for household 
 use. The purpose is purely industrial, and hence 
 the mental culture received in the course of the man- 
 ual exercise is the mere incident of a mechanical 
 pursuit. But the making of things in the schools 
 of Europe is gradually extending." 
 
 It is so in the United States. The large cities 
 have their "industrial schools" for special training, 
 and these are receiving an ever-increasing patronage. 
 But industrial training is not confined to these. It 
 is creeping into the public schools of the smaller 
 cities and towns, as un adjunct to the regular work 
 of the schools in the various grades. 
 
 Ham speaks with characteristic optimism of the 
 ideal school of the future in the following terms : 
 
 "The ideal school is an institution which develops 
 and trains to usefulness the moral, physical, and 
 intellectual powers of man. It is what Comenius 
 called humanity's workshop, and in America it is 
 becoming the natural center of the public school 
 system. The building, well designed for occupancy, 
 is large, airy, open to the light on every side, amply 
 provided wdth all appliances requisite for instruc- 
 tion in the arts and sciences, and finished exteriorlv 
 and interiorly in the highest style of useful and 
 
 71 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 beautiful architectural effects. The distinguishing 
 characteristic of the ideal school building is its 
 chimney, which rises far above the roof, from whose 
 tall stack a column of smoke issues; and the hum 
 and whir of machinery is heard, and the heavy thud 
 of the sledge-hammer, resounding on the anvil, 
 smites the ear. 
 
 "Is it, then, a factory, rather than a school?" *'No. 
 It is a school — the school of the future; the school 
 to dignify labor ; the school that is to generate power ; 
 the school where every sound contributes to the har- 
 mony of development; where the brain informs the 
 muscle, where thought directs every blow, where the 
 mind, the eye, and the hand constitute an invincible 
 triple alliance. This is the school that Locke 
 dreamed of, that Bacon wished for, that Rousseau 
 described, and that Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel 
 struggled in vain to establish." 
 
 John Ruskin, voicing a similar sentiment, says in 
 his "Fors Clavigera:" 
 
 "To know the use of either land or tools, you 
 must know what useful things can be grown from 
 the one and made with the other. And therefore, 
 to know what is useful and what is useless, and be 
 skillful to provide the one and wise to scorn the 
 other, is the first need for all industrious men. 
 AVherefore, I propose that schools should be estab- 
 lished wherein the use of hand and tool shall be 
 
 72 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 taught conclusively — in other words, the science of 
 agriculture (with associated river and sea culture), 
 and the nobler arts and exercises of humanity." 
 
 The moral influence of manual training as a part 
 of the education of the masses of the people has 
 been the subject of much comment. It has been 
 noted that five-sixths of the four hundred and eighty- 
 seven convicts received at the State prison for the 
 eastern district of Pennsylvania had been pupils in 
 the public schools, and tlmt the same number were 
 without trades ; that four out of five in the peniten- 
 tiaries of Illinois have no training in hand work of 
 any kind. 
 
 Commenting upon these facts, Hand remarks thus : 
 
 'The fact that the skilled workman is far more 
 likely than the common laborer to keep out of the 
 penitentiary is a powerful argument in favor of 
 joining manual training to the mental exercises of 
 our common schools." 
 
 There is another consideration which he adds, as 
 follows : 
 
 ''The general adoption of a comprehensive sya- 
 tem of education in the public schools would quickly 
 dispel the unworthy prejudice against labor which 
 taints the minds of the youth of the country. The 
 splendid career which this age opens to the educated 
 mechanic should be made clear to the vision of every 
 
 73 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 boy in the land; and he will see, in the tools he is 
 taught to handle, the key not only to fair success, 
 but also to wealth and fame." 
 
 As an experiment to test the adaptation of hand 
 training to all the nine grades represented in a vil- 
 lage school, the public school of Hyannis, Mass., was 
 made the training department of the State Normal 
 School situated at that place. William A. Bald- 
 win, Principal of the institution, writes thus of its 
 work: ''If your visit were made at three o^clock in 
 the afternoon, you would see a school very much 
 like the ordinary village school, housed in a mod- 
 ern brick building of six rooms, and doing the usual 
 schoolroom work. At five minutes after three, you 
 would see a transformation. The school becomes 
 a manufactory, in which each child is making some- 
 thing. In the first room, one group of children, 
 working in pairs, is engaged in weaving rugs for the 
 doll's house; some are braiding, and others are sew- 
 ing their braided raphia into mats. In the second- 
 year room a group of the children are making fur- 
 niture of tag board, while the other division of the 
 class has gone to work in the garden. In the third- 
 year room, the third-grade children are making ra- 
 phia baskets, while the fourth-grade children are 
 out working in their garden. Of the children in the 
 grammar grades, some boys have gone to the attic, 
 to make rattan baskets; one group of girls is at the 
 
 74 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 dormitory, sewing on the machine ; the eighth-grade 
 boys and girls are at work in their garden, and one 
 class has taken an expedition into the fields, to study 
 the birds. * * * 
 
 "It is worth going far to see the new spirit which 
 shines in their faces, and the new attitude which has 
 been developed toward nearly all of the school work. 
 This is evident throughout the day, and in all the 
 grades.'^ 
 
 A hint of the coming training of the hand and 
 development of ''faculty" was given many years ago 
 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her story of ''The Min- 
 ister's Wooing." "Faculty," remarked Mrs. Stowe, 
 "is the greatest virtue, and shiftlessness the greatest 
 vice, of Yankee men and women. To her who has 
 faculty, nothing shall be impossible. She shall 
 scrub floors, wash, iron, bake, brew, and yet her 
 hands shall be small and white; she shall have no 
 perceptible income, yet always be handsomely 
 dressed ; she shall have not a servant in her house — 
 wdth a dairy to manage, hired men to feed, a boarder 
 or two to care for, unheard-of pickling and preserv- 
 ing to do — and yet you commonly see her every after- 
 noon sitting at her shady parlor window behind the 
 lilacs, cool and easy, hemming muslin cap-strings 
 or reading the last new book. She who hath faculty 
 is never in a hurry, never behindhand. She can al- 
 ways step over to show Mrs. Jones how she makes 
 
 75 
 
TIMELY TOPICS FOR TEACHERS. 
 
 her pickles green, and be ready to watch with poor 
 old Mrs. Simpkins, who is down with the rheuma- 
 tism." 
 
 The design of the new education is to prepare men 
 and women for complete living; and this necessarily 
 involves the training of the hand concurrently with 
 the training of the mind. 
 
 A recognition of the importance of hand training 
 in the public schools is seen in the legislation of 
 many States within recent years. More and more 
 are the legislatures providing for the introduction of 
 manual training, in its various forms, into the pub- 
 lic schools, as adjuncts to the intellectual training. 
 Beginning generally with the larger cities, but grad- 
 ually extending the plans to include the smaller com- 
 munities, the legislatures have either appropriated 
 State moneys or permitted the use of local funds for 
 the establishment of working rooms with machinery, 
 tools and appliances, and working material, and for 
 the payment of skilled instructors to conduct the 
 work. 
 
 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT. 
 
 Ham's "Mind and Hand." 
 
 Hoffman's "Sloyd." 
 
 Baldwin's "Industrial-Social Education." 
 
 Sickles' "Wood Working." 
 
 Golden's "Wood Turning." 
 
 Kevri's "Among Country Schools." 
 
 76 
 
ooks for Further Study 
 
 The Educational Theories of Rousseau. 
 
 Rousseau's Emile, 157 pp.; paper, $0.25; clotli, $0.90. 
 Rousseau's Education According to Nature, 233 pp.; 
 cloth, $1.00. 
 Hinsdale's Art of Study, 266 pp.; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 The Doctrine of Interest. 
 
 DeGarmo's Interest and Education, 226 pp.; cloth, $1.00. 
 Herbart's Science of Education, 285 pp.; cloth, $1.00. 
 Keith's Elementary Education, 339 pp.; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 A Discussion of Herbert Spencer's Theory of Punishment. 
 
 Spencer's Education, 309 pp.; cloth, $0.75. 
 MacCunn's Making of Character, 222 pp.; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 The Use of the Study Period. 
 
 Bagley's Educative Processes, 349 pp.; cloth, $1.25. 
 Roark's Method in Education, 348 pp.; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 The Panama Canal. 
 
 Forbes-Lindsay's Panama — The Isthmus and the Canal, 
 368 pp., maps and illustrations; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Pepper's Panama to Patagonia, 397 pp., maps and il- 
 lustrations; cloth, $2.50. 
 
 Reclaiming of Arid Lands In the West. 
 
 Smythe's Conquest of Arid America, 360 pp., maps and 
 illustrations; cloth, $1.50. 
 
 The Value of Handwork in Public Schools. 
 
 Baldwin's Industrial-Social Education, 147 pp., illustra- 
 tions; cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Hoffman's Sloyd, 242 pp.; cloth, $1.00. 
 
 Ham's Mind and Hand, 464 pp., illustration; cloth, 
 $1.25. 
 
 Kevri's Among Country Schools, 366 pp.; cloth, $1.25. 
 
 We will send any of these books, by mail, to any ad- 
 dress, on receipt of price. 
 
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 333 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. 
 
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