Gold Hill Daily News

THE OLD AND THE NEW.
THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE AND
THE SCHOOL ROOM OF TODAY.
The Difference Between Mind-Burdening
and Mental Development—Toppins and Arithmetic—
The Boy Who "Knew" His Papa
and His Uncle.
The old log school-house with its three
R's and its master, monarch of all he
surveyed, was not further removed from
"Dotheboys Hall" of Dickens than
is the school-room of today from the
first mentioned institution. In that
same
last and first aforesaid institution
the pupil of tender years was called to
the monarch's knee from once to three
times a day and made to struggle till his
head lopped and his tongue protruded
and his eyes rolled in an endeavor to
memorize the alphabet as pointed out
letter by letter by that same monarch
with the glittering point of the pen-
knife. This process occupied fully ten
minutes per day and during the remain-
ing five hours and fifty minutes of the
school day the youth was left to dangle
his diminutive legs six inches above the
floor and from the little front bench.
Children did not love school in those
far-off days and why should they, when
its exercises were a dread and its con-
finement a torture? Their minds were
then loaded down like Chinese pack-
mule and had poor chance for growth.
Every child-like instinct was repressed
and every young inclination perverted
by rigid rules enforced by physical
torture.
The contrast between the old and the
new was never brought more forcibly to
mind than Wednesday afternoon, when
this representative of the News visited
the two lower classes in the Gold Hill
Central School building and became an
interested witness of proceedings there.
And here one little fact is worthy of
record: The average attendance at the
Gold Hill schools is 97 per cent. of the
enrolled pupils; and the wonderful part
of this is that this average is raised in-
stead of lowered by the youngest classes
in the school.
One of the most encouraging features
of the schools of today is, therefore,
that the school-room is made attractive
to the youngest attendants. Amusement
is combined with instruction. Youthful
tendencies are followed and made to con-
tribute to mind unfoldment instead of
mental torture, and physical education
is made to keep pace with mental ad-
vancement.
The most of yesterday afternoon was
spent in company with Miss Lynch and
her babies. She has a large family of
little ones. Of these forty have com-
pleted the Second Reader and are already
up to the grade of the next primary
class above. The babies number about
seventy more, half of whom attend in
the forenoon and the other half in the
afternoon. Of these the forenoon class
is the more advanced, and, although
only six months in school, add, subtract,
multiply and divide through all numbers
up to twenty, and instead of b-a ba-ing,
etc., read and write and spell with
facility, having been taught by the word
and phonic method.
While the exercises by the older class
in Miss Lynch's room and by those in
the class above in Miss Wright's room
were of more than ordinary interest, and
showed the advantages of the new sys-
tem of instruction, it is of the younger
class that this item must mainly treat.
Mind unfoldment is the great object
of the improved modern school, and
everything which contributes to this is
sought out and used. Active, eager eyes
are made to help the mind's eye to see
things as they are.
It is difficult to make children 6 years
of age understand abstractly that two
and three make five; but set up five
wooden pins on the floor and let the
youngster of either sex bowl down two
of them, and the child will at once un-
derstand both the above fact and the
further one that two from five leave
three. By going on in this and similar
ways a little while the elements of addi-
tion and subtraction and multiplication
and division are mastered and under-
stood. This method of instruction is,
moreover, as well adapted to the
physical as mental wants of pupils,
and is much better than ruling them
into unnatural positions by physical
torture.
Children love pictures; and this love
is made conducive in the modern school
room not only to ordinary education but
may be made to subserve even higher
ends. It is amusing to listen to the lit-
tle children in Miss Lynch's room when
a new picture is given them. Each will
look it carefully over and then tell the
whole story illustrated by it. Should
the most trivial thing escape the obser-
vation of one of them others will add it
at once. Not the least interesting por-
tions of exercises of this kind are those
in which entirely original ideas are
evolved from youthful brains. No two
will see the picture exactly alike, hence
almost endless variations of ideas will be
presented, not
a few of which will be
original.
And is "the good of all this asked?"
It certainly gives children individuality
and it is in this more than anything else
that grown people differ. Then it en-
courages the children to form and ex-
press opinions of their own, gives them
self-reliance and prevents them from
copying all their lives after some one
else. The advantages of this system are
in fact so numerous as almost to pre-
clude mention.
In fact there is no telling what amount
of true and native genius may be devel-
oped by proper mind unfoldment in the
school-room. It may be years before
this takes definite shape, and it may not
be found in all in any prominent degree;
but if it is there it will be awakened and
manifest itself in one way or another.
It is impossible to polish a brickbat;
but, if in the clay of its composition a
diamond be hidden it can be made to
shine, though never so small.
There was one boy in the class; and it
doth not yet appear what he will be, but
one of these days somebody will see him
as he is. He had yesterday gone through
his lesson in numbers by the aid of the
splints and sat down to amuse himself
with them. He had been shown a skel-
eton of the human frame only a few days
before—a real, ghastly, bony skeleton.
horror to most people—but he loved it.
for all that, and learned more about in
thirty minutes than many grown people
know. So that afternoon he set himself
to work to make a man of his splints
—worse materials than the Creator had
in the first place, one would think.
The material, poor as it was, ran out
before the boy's ideas were completed,
and he borrowed splints of his neighbors
till he had all that was about him. The
result was soon standing upon his desk.
Then he commenced laughing, and kept
it up
till finally Miss Lynch went to
him
"What have you there,
(name
suppressed for obvious reasons).
"Two men; I made 'em."
"And who are they, pray?"
"Oh, that's my papa and that's my
uncle; and they are trying to shake
hands but are so drunk they can't find
each other. They (very confidentially)
have been on a spree
"Well, now, what's spree?"
"Oh, it's getting just jolly drunk!"
"And did you ever see any one on a
spree?"
"Yes, ma'am; lots o' times. My papa
and my uncle get on a spree most every
day."
It's a dreadful thing to give the human
mind a wrong bent in early years. If
that boy fails to honor his father one of
those days, that father can blame him-
self for it.