Experiment 31.- Suspend a stone by a string (Fig. 3). Obs. The string prevents the stone from falling. Inf.- Tue sting indicates the direction in which the stone would fall, if it were left free to do so. Definition 18.-- The direction in which a body falls, is moved by the force of gravity alone, is called Vertical. Define a plum line. What is its practical use? Draw a circle on the blackboard to represent the earth, and place dots to represent stones in the atmosphere around it (Fig 4). According to the Law of Gravitation, where would the stones all go? Draw lines showing the direction in which the stones would travel. On account of the bulging form of our globe, a body at the equator is farther from the centre of the earth than at the poles. What is the inference in regard to the comparative weight of bodies at the equator and at the poles? On the top of mountains and at the level of the ocean? Give a simple explanation of the tides. Endeavor to enlarge the pupils' idea of universal gravitation, by showing how its power is extended to the most remote parts of the heavens. How all the planets of our solar system continually act on one another, and on the immense sphere which shines at their common focus. How the sun, by its enormous mass, keeps all of them in their orbits. How the worlds throughout space are linked together, making the universe a unit. [The pupils should answer the questions from their own deductions and demonstration.] OUTLINES FOR A COMPOSITION ON GRAVITATION. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation - explain it.- All bodies gravitate to the centre of the earth.- Define up and down.-Vertical.- Plumb line - practical use.- Gravity. Weight. - Mass. Weight of bodies on the sun, the moon, and the earth compared. Weight of bodies on different parts of the earth's surface. - The worlds throughout space are linked together making the universe a unit. "The smallest dust which floats upon the wind And gravitation binds and guides the whole." Methods in Physiology. By E. W. BARRETT, Lee, Mass. Fig. 4. What kind of lines are they? Vertical. Are vertical lines parallel? The different verticals are not parallel; but when near together, and at slight distances, the angle which they form is so small that it is impossible to measure it. Definition 19.- The force which draws all bodies toward the center of the earth is called Gravity. Show the pupils various instruments that are used to measure the force of gravity. Definition 20.- The measure of the force of gravity is called weight. Take this piece of iron, and this piece of wood of about the same size. Which is the heavier? What makes the iron heavier than the wood? It is because the earth attracts the iron more strongly than it does the wood. For this reason the iron is said to have a greater mass than the wood has. Definition 21.- The quantity of matter upon which depends the weight of a body is called its mass. How can you tell which has the greater mass of two bodies? Weigh equal volumes of the bodies, the one that is the heavier, has the greater mass. If the mass of the earth were doubled, retaining its present size, how much would a 100 pound man then weigh? A body on the sun would weigh 27.7 times as much as it weighed on the earth. A pound of iron on the earth would weigh only about of a pound on the moon. What would a 150 pound man weigh, if transported to the sun? If transported to the moon? If carried to the centre of the earth? A body at the surface of the earth (4000 miles from the centre) weighs 100 lbs. What would be its weight 4000 miles above the surface of the earth. Solution.-A body 4000 miles above the surface of the earth would be 8000 miles from the centre. By Newton's Law, gravity decreases as the square of the distance increases; therefore if a body weighs 100 lbs. on the surface of the earth, it would weigh 400 much, or 25 lbs., when removed twice as far away, (8000 miles) from the centre of the earth. Give several arithmetical problems illustrating the principles of gravitation. Children like such questions, there is a novelty about them. PEDAGOGY. Education of Teachers at Work. T By FRANCIS W. PARKER, Prin. Cook Co. Normal School, Ill. HE whole problem of the education of the teacher at work is comprehended under intelligent supervision, supplemented by an earnest desire on the part of teachers for something better. Teaching is the art of all arts and demands incessant study, and this demand increases as knowledge and skill increase. The teacher who is doing the best work, feels most deeply the need of more study. The possibilities of learning to teach are infinite. A teacher who ceases to study cannot teach efficiently. The first function of supervision is to make conditions which in themselves lead to a close and persistent study on the part of teachers; the second and no less important function is the training of teachers. Without the efficient exercise of the first, there will be no necessity for the second. All the authority, knowledge, and skill of supervision should concentrate upon a demand for genuine educative work on the part of each and every teacher; this shou'd be manifested in the course of study and in all directions, criticisms and suggestions. It may be difficult to defne what educative work really is, but there is no difficulty whatever in defining the effect of such a demand upon teachers. The demand for genuine teaching is at or e and the same time a demand for study on the part of teachers, and the more genuine the work demanded, the greater is the desire for study incited. The effectiveness of teaching is surely indicated by what the teacher really wants to know. A teacher's soul is dead that is not crying out for something better for the children. A demand for genuine education is a demand for the highest quality of mental action; given the right quality of mental action, the quantity of knowledge will take care of itself. The reason why children acquire so little knowledge with so much effort is due to the amount of knowledge required of them. If the demand for teaching is quantitive and is to be marked by finished chapters, per cents, and promotions, there will and can be no progressive study. Demanding quantity from pupils and quality from teachers is demanding an impossibility; is requiring an art which cannot be applied; only as we give we have, in the application is found the truth. The supervision that demands quantity, inspects quantity, examines for quantity, promotes for quantity, gives credit to teachers for the amount of knowledge gained by pupils, effectively suppresses all desire and effort to study. A Teachers' Meeting under such supervision is "flat, stale and unprofitable." To require the study of the science of teaching from quantity teachers, would be like demanding knowledge of fine arts from a house painter. A supervisor's soul should be in full sympathy with educative work, and there should be no doubt in the mind of his teacher in regard to this. The first question of a supervisor to the teachers committed to his charge should always be, what have you discovered? This question, it will be understood, is to be answered by the work of the pupils. A supervisor who is not delighted to find that a teacher has discovered something new, something he never thought of himself, fails utterly in one indispensable qualification, the power to stimulate creative thought and independent investigation. If he does not embody this truth of Emerson, "the great man can afford to be little," he is lacking in the first qualification for his great office. School supervision is the fundamental means of encouraging and directing the teachers' study. Appreciation of merit is the first duty of a supervisor, and next to this a clear insight of the principal weakness. Inspection should always be followed by personal and private criticism. A supervisor who fails to give a teacher the main outcome of his inspection, shrinks cowardly, to say the least, from his duty. Effective criticism requires great tact and diplomacy, it is true, but not the diplomacy that conceals j dgment. This kindly criticism which is never carping or fault-finding should be met and appreciated by the teacher who may help a supervisor by presenting a list of questions, similar to the following: What is the best thing in my teaching? Please illustrate. How may I improve in this direction? What is my worst fault? Please illustrate. How may I cure this fault? -- (a) gov Please give me a list of my faults in the direction of, ernment; (b) voice and manner; (c) questioning; (d) temper. Is my grestest need knowledge of subj cts, or skill in teaching? What is your opinion of certain methods and devices that I am using? What changes would you make if you had charge of my room? Please illustrate your criticisms by giving a lesson ? Write out questions like these and present them to the inspector. Teachers should make it more than easy for the supervisor to tell all he thinks. If a teacher does not feel deeply his need of criticism, his needs are indeed great. Teachers should study that which lies closest to their immediate A Teachers' Meeting is a place where discoveries, experiences, doubts and successes are brought and distributed for the benefit of all who enjoy its privileges. No lecture, however brilliant, can compare with an honest, genuine experience and inquiry-meeting. The supervisor suggests the line of discussion by sending each teacher a printed slip, containing some pregnant subject pertaining to genuine work : Please state how you teach reading? Give all the details. Why do you teach in the way or by the method you describe ? What are the results ? If above the second grade, how well did your pupils read when they came under your care? What relation has reading in your teaching to other subjects? In what do you fail in teaching reading? Each teacher is expected to answer these questions at the next meceting; the answers may be written or oral. Under a good leader, one who encourages free and honest discussion, a meeting suggested by questions like these will be exceedingly interesting and profitable. There should be a careful preparation on the part of the teachers for the meetings. To this end, printed or multifold schedules containing plan of discussion, list of questions or theses, should early be in the hands of the teachers. Another plan is to have a thesis presented and defended by some person appointed for that purpose. To illustrate: I will take some proposition in the theory of concentration, of which we hear on every hand, a theory which has one great merit, at least,-it furnishes excellent subjects for discussion. Thesis: All reading may be most economically taught in direct relation to science, geography and history. Every lesson in reading should be a lesson in one of these subjects. Explain how the first steps in reading may be taught by expressing thought evolved from observation. Relation of reading to writing. Relation of literature to science, geography to history. All reading should consist of good literature. Let the leader defend his thesis, present the principles, and explain the methods, then ask for questions. He can ask questions in turn. Have you applied the theory in any way? Please give your experience. What obstacles bav you met? What obstacles may be overcome by better teaching? What are your arguments for or against the theory? How much time would be saved if reading could be under this theory? Follow this discussion with similar ones upon writing, arithmetic and drawing. A year could be spent very profitably upon the doctrines of concentration. Circumstances should control the kind and nature of Teachers' Meetings. By circumstances, I mean that needs should become genuine heartfelt wants in the minds of teachers. Any lessons in meetings which teachers cannot directly apply, fall to the ground. Wants must be cultivated by earnest, yes, imperative-demands for educative work growing out of the teacher's liberty to apply that which he discovers. Teachers' Meetings should throw a strong light upon such discoveries, testing their validity. The moment a teacher begins to doubt and reason concerning his work, that moment he is ready to take one step in the right direction. The essential preparation of teachers at work must be made in the school room, and must be the teacher's personal experience, which he should be more than willing to have doubted and criticised. For a supervisor to organize classes in psychology, child-study psybhology or pedagogics, unsupported by real wants on the part of his teachers, is not, to say the least, an economical use of time. All teaching and all study should steadily gravitate towards these higher studies, and the more progressive the movement is in the schoolroom, the quicker the time will come when the science of mind and its application will become an absolute essential to further progress. It is by no means necessary or desirable to study either psychology or pedagogics apart and separate from direct school room work. To the teacher who is looking deeper into his art, psychology soon becomes a positive necessity. Such questions as these would open a vista of inquiry to a thoughtful teacher: If I am the child's will,- that is, if he is made to implicitly obey me in all things, how and when will he have opportunities to exercise his own will? What is the relation of will to education? What is the difference between memory and mind? What quality of mental action best develops the memory? What is the psychology of the phonic method? What is the psychology of numbers? What is a number to you? What is the difference between a pure and an applied number? What mental action is induced by drills in the number tables? What is the psychology of spelling? What is the relation of oral to written spelling? Should forms in spelling be used before a pupil needs them to express thought? Why? What is the psychology of attention? What is the relation of attention to education? These and like questions may be partially answered by a close study of children at work. Fifty teachers working assiduously upon such questions, and then putting their experiences together in meetings, discussing points of difference, searching for the best authorities, and finding some tentative conclusions, would be a far better way of studying psychology than following even the best textbook. Both psychology and pedagogics should be made to live in a rich and varied school room experience. if you had the means? love Do you think the cause of weakness is inherited or acquired ? There is generally one or more cases for a similar diagnosis in each school. Let each teacher bring to the meeting blanks as above indicated, carefully filled out, with explanations, questions, suggestions of causes. Several cases are described and compared, suggestions for cures are made, and the teachers go back to their schools with a renewed desire for a closer study of the child and a better application of means. The end and aim of criticism, Teachers' Meetings, suggestions, and study, is to drive the teacher, impelled by an awakened conscience, to doubt the efficacy of everything done in the schoolroom, to watch with exceeding closeness the minds of his pupils, to inquire how his own teaching may be improved, and to bring his doubts, his failures and successes, into the Teachers' Meetings, for the criticism, encouragement and assistance of his fellow teachers. Such a "division of labor" would soon set a district on fire with zeal and enthusiasm. Each school-room would become a laboratory for scientific inquiry; each child a specimen to be closely studied; every method would be put into the crucible of reason; the desire for means and conditions for human development would be greatly enhanced, leading teachers to study subjects as never before. The question is often put, "Is there not great danger in allowing teachers to experiment on children?" Not a tithe of the danger there is in allowing supervisors to prescribe methods, and rigidly enforce the literal following of a course of study. The most awful experiment, is to put a girl fresh from the high school or a cram examination, without a scintilla of the art of teach`ng, or a faint suspicion of it in charge of fifty immortal souls; and next to that, even more awful if possible, to put a college graduate, chock full of conceit and little else, at the head of a school. The highest duty of a community or state is to give each individual the liberty and means to become free, — free in the sense that "the truth shall make you free." The central means of freedom is the common school. It is our imperative duty, my fellow teachers, to make it adequate to its holy task. Dangers thicken around us, the fire must burn bright upon the altar of liberty, the common school, else the shadows of the old world will darken the future and deepen into total obscurity. "Auf bade Schüler unverdrossen Die irdishe Brust im Morgen Roth." "Up then, and to work," my fellow teachers, the way is clear and the means, at hand. Have the devotion to duty, the courage to apply; that courage which lifts the veil of the future and reveals the glories in store for man; glories "eye hath not seen." The line of march is along the realization of infinite possibility for good and growth. There is no stop, no stay; God has given us the divine task to do, it must be done. Search for the truth, find it, apply it. We need the exaltation of office; we need to feel the dignity of being in a strife more glorious than history can show; the strife for human freedom through the exaltation which means more than any other, the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. (Suggestion.) Divide the sketch into parts, allowing the children to read them, thus making a social exercise. 3. Recitation, -Ode for Washington's Birthday. A new-sprung nation's hope forlorn ; They rushed to arms with dauntless will, Their hungry eyes, their feet half bare, In Valley Forge, the camp of prayer? The Father of his Country! Yes, Stint not the measure of his praise; Great Lincoln's meed makes his not less; Grant's statue envies not his bays. An imperturbed, victorious man! The signet of a valorous soul And sparkles over sea and land. Ye loud rejoicing trumpet's bray! Sound, piercing fife, and throbbing drum ! While marching on in plumed array, The gleaming ranks of soldiers come! Now be the starry flags unfurled, While war-remembering cannon boom, -W. H. VENABLE. 6. Anecdotes of "Our Nation's Heroes." (Reading.) FIRST PUPIL. "One day, during the Revolutionary War, a corporal was superintending the removal of a heavy piece of timber, but did not lend his assistance. His orders were given in a loud and peremptory voice, when a man came riding by on horseback. Seeing how the case stood, he stopped and said to the corporal, "Why don't you help? Don't you see that the load is too heavy for your men?" The corporal drew himself up proudly and replied, "I am a corporal, and that is not my work." The rider dismounted and quietly assisted the men. After the work was completed he turned to the corporal and said, "Next time you want anything like that done, call on your commander-in-chief." The corporal was much chagrined to learn that the rider was General George Washington." cabin in eastern Illinois, and asked for a night's loging. The good wife was hospitable, but per lexed. "We can feed your beast, but we cannot lodge you, unless you are willing to sleep with the hired man," said she. "Let's have a look at him, first," said the pedler. The woman pointed to the side of the house, where a lank, six-footed man, in ragged, but clean clothes, was stre ched on the grass, reading a book. "He'll do," said the stranger. "A man who reads a book as hard as that fellow seems to, has got too much to think of besides my wa'ch and small change." The hired man was LINCOLN. So they went to the President, and the Secretary, turning to the General said: "Now, General, state your case." "I have no case to state, I am satisfied as it is," replied General Grant. This was excellent strategy, and threw the burden of explanation upon Secretary Stanton. In the meantime Grant had the men. Lincoln listened quietly to the Secretary, then said, with a twinkle in his eye; "Now Secretary, you know we have been trying to manage this army for three years, and have not succeeded yet. We sent over the mountains and brought Mr. Grant to manage for us, and now I guess we'd better let Mr. Grant have his own way." And Mr. Grant had it. FOURTH PUPIL. In the aut mn of 1830, a traveling book-pedler, who afterwards became the head of a well-known firm, came to the door of a log Abraham Lincoln; and when he was president, the two men met in Washington, and laughed together over the story of the'r earlier meeting. 7. THE RED. WHITE AND BLUE Solo and Chorus. (Let the girl who sings the solo be dressed in red, white and blue, with a Liberty cap made cut of gilt paper. Let her also carry a flag. Have flags conceal d in the desks, and at the singing of the chorus, in which the school joins, wave them aloft.) Oh, Columbia, the gem of the ocean, The home of the brave When borne by the red, white and blue. (Social Exercise.) Girls. Undertake not what you cannot perfo m; but be careful Girls. Haste not to relate news if you know not the truth thereof. In talking of things you have heard, name not your author always. A secret disclose not. Boys.Associate yourself with men of good quality if you value your reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company. Girls. Speak not when others speak, sit not when others stand, walk not when others stop. Boys. - Zealously strive to keep alive in your breast, that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. |