THE PACIFIC EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL. Official Organ of the Department of Public Instruction of California. VOL. VIII. DECEMBER, 1892. No. 12. CURRENT EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT. If the true spirit of Froebel could be felt by every teacher and parent, during one generation, in this country, the brood of patriots and philanthropists would be increased beyond our comprehension.— W. E. SHELDON. THE proper way to examine a child is to teach him a new subject, and observe what activity he can bring to bear. Habit is the reflection. of activity, and the kind of activity determines the quality of the habit. SUPT. A. E. FRYE, San Bernardino. To the wide-awake primary teacher who is on the lookout for everything that will enlarge her usefulness in the schoolroom I would. earnestly recommend that she turn her attention during her spare moments to the study and practice of Kindergarten occupations and gifts. SUPT. M. M. FRIESNER, Los Angeles. CULTIVATION of eye power, to train the eye to catch not only one word but the whole line or sentence at a glance, and concentration of thought, to fully grasp the subject, are essential to good reading, either silent or aloud. Oral reading in our schools is not for elocutionary effect, but to convey to the hearer plainly the thoughts of the author as represented on the printed page.-SUPT. EUGENE DEBURN, San Diego, Cal. THE most instructive and helpful lecture that I could present to a body of young teachers, would be a sketch of the possibilities that lie ahead of us in the way of Professional Training. As I believe that the most of that preparation must consist in the direct study of children, my lecture would be in large part a summary of what has so far been done in the direct study of child psychology, with suggestions as to lines of work that promise most for the future. - PROF. EARL BARNES. A GREAT deal of the "New Education" consists inputting a boy to chopping "lind wood" with a good sharp ax when he should be at work on hickory, oak, and hard maple. No boy can ever become an experienced and expert axman by continually chopping "lind" (basswood) or "cotton wood." Solid work and where there are some knots always counts. Work is work; play is play. Play-study is a beautiful thing to fool doting parents with, and it also dwarfs the intellects of the children besides. As teachers, let us size up products, and look truth straight in the face. There is no royal road to learning. Strong effort is the price to be paid for success.-J. M. GREENWOOD. I RECENTLY Saw a class of first-year pupils add columns of numbers like accountants, and I pitied the pupils! In one of our large cities. some two years ago, I saw pupils who had been in school only three months, write sums of money, using $ and correctly, and then add the numbers thus written, and again I pitied the pupils! I recently saw pupils between five and six years of age, in school only five months read twenty or more words written on the blackboard, actually determining, under the teacher's guidance, and by the application of rules. the silent letters, the sounds of vowels, indicating the latter by diacrit ical marks, etc., and I not only pitied the little ones, but felt sorry for the teacher who was faithfully trying the new system. I left the room thankful that I was never put through such a drill in my first reading lessons. Indeed, I was ignorant of several of the rules which this skillful teacher was applying, and I am glad of it.- DR. E. E. WHITE. THE teacher ought to remember that every arithmetical principle needs an extended application. Pupils should be given problems outside of the text-book, but those problems should deal with small figures and with practical conditions. This drill will be to no purpose, unless the pupil is lead to see the universality of his rule or principle. The teacher is constantly violatiig the most important of these maxims "From the concrete to the abstract" by either reversing the order of the statement or by entirely omitting the first part of it. How many of our schools have an arithmetical labratory? The majority of our teachers would be surprised to see the amount of such apparatus in a German school. If it is unphilosophical to teach Physics and Chemistry without experiments, it is surely unpedagogical to teach numbers, measurement, fractions, interest, and evolution without the least equipment. The modern school needs a supply of suitable apparatus, and the modern teacher should demand it.-DR. J. D. DILLINGHAM, N. J. GENERAL DEPARTMENT. Whittier as a Colorist. BY MARY E. SACKETT, PACIFIC GROVE, CAL. Among the many good things of the recent Teachers' Institute at Pacific Grove, was a most delightfully suggestive "Outline of Class Study in Snow-bound," given by Miss Green. One idea, although not advanced in a positive way, was so contrary to previous impressions, that it has since been made a subject of special study. The members of Miss Green's class having been encouraged to gather all explanatory information possible, read somewhere that Whittier was color blind, for once the sober quaker wore unknowingly a green cravat! This statement seemed quite plausible from the general colorlessness of the poem, but generalizations formulated from solitary instances are liable to incompleteness, and summer bloom is not usually expected in the midst of a driving snow storm. Snow-bound opens with what Oscar Wilde might call a symphony in white and gray, as To one familiar with a New England winter, no intensity of color is comparable to the dazzling, brilliant, scintillating whiteness of freshly fallen snow, crystallized by deepening cold, with over-arching skies of cloudless blue. In a third picture, "The moon Shone at its full; the hill range stood Transfigured in the silver flood, Its blown snows dead white, the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black." This is certainly most exquisitely tinted. Ruskin himself could not ask closer fidelity to nature, or truer poetical imagination. Then with fingers deft as Rembrant's own, the poet paints the glowing interior, the figures grouped in the ruddy firelight, the silhouettes on the whitewashed walls, the rude furnished room bursting into rosy bloom, and the dancing witch-flames, that seem to frolic outside among the "tall and sheeted ghosts." Besides these definite, characteristic color studies, which combined. unfold our country's flag, there are numberless suggestions, not the raw pigments thrust upon our notice, but delicate touches, like the sea marshes, the sandy beaches, the violet-sprinkled sod, the hare-bell, and the brier rose. But that our poet may be accorded his full deserts, let us sit in the shadow of the pines that fringe Lake Winnipiseogee, and with the smile of the Great Spirit upon us, wander over the pages of "Among the Hills." The lavish fullness of later summer is rivalling "October's holocaust of gold and crimson." "Heavy with sunshine droops the golden rod And the red pennons of the cardinal flower Hang motionless. Against the neighboring hill The sheep show white." "And, close on autumn's frost, the vales Had more than June's fresh greenness." "How through each pass and hollow, streamed The purpling lights of heaven; Rose o'er the mountain summits." So on through the richly wrought setting of the poet's vision, gleam precious jewels, rubies, topaz, amethyst, transmuted to living light, the glorified radiance of a spiritual presence. Careless he might be in the matter of cravats, but most delicately sensitive to Nature's "harmonies of sound, form, color, motion." Closing the volume, and turning to the magnificent loveliness of landscape, rising in infinite reaches, and mirrored in the clear, blue depths, we recognize the faithful transcript of the pictured page. Surely, Whittier's "eyes were made for seeing. An Important Problem. S. L. O. What effect will climate have upon education in California? New England with its rigorous writers has homes where parents and children are compelled by cold to assemble about the firesides. The dullness of the long winters must be relieved by readings, study and social conversation. Education becomes a matter of necessity. The preparation for winter compels coöperation among all the members of the family and produces habits of industry and practical thought. The Pacific Coast, the land of sunshine and flowers, the land of unsurpassed climate, the land flowing with milk and honey, the land. yielding in abundance corn and wine, olives, dates and pomegranates, oranges, citrons and lemons, demands from its people no care for home or shelter, save a roof that may shed the rains of three short months. Its mild climate that fairly intoxicates the immigrant and brings a sudden glow of health to the cheek of the visiting invalid, fairly begs each citizen to spend his days beneath the shade of the spreading oaks and his nights under the open sky. Its people, the energetic, the thrifty, the industrious from all lands, have made the Pacific Coast a stirring country whose institutions are far in advance of the world except as influenced by the element of time. Where is there a school system not yet fifty years old that is superior to ours? Where is there a University not yet thirty years old that surpasses in any respect our State University? Where is there a University not yet two years old that is the peer of the Leland Stanford Junior University? What land excells ours in business enterprise and energy? This land of climate and productions is fast becoming filled with people. Its numbers will never seriously be diminished by emigration. The time must soon come when the influence of climate and the attractions of nature will have their effect. When the thrifty and energetic of other lands cease coming to us in large numbers and we settle down to follow out our own inclinations, what will be the resultant of these component forces? Already we discover that we have no homes here. There are a few remaining attempts at home-making that remind us of Whittier's |