A Reply To Rev. Sunderland's Article

Aun Arbor, May 17th, 1892. Mr. Editor:- The excellent article in your last issue concernlng instruction in the public schools, and several artieles of similar import in other papers, disclose a healthy condition of the public thought about the education of our children. They may also suggest to some the propriety of a word of explanation, on the part of the school authoriti-es, especially as said articles imply eome criticism of the management of the shcools. The articles in questlon are all aglow wtth the love of nature, and especially with admiration of the new lii'e constant ly unfoldlng before us in these verraai days. It is just such a epirit as our teachers like to see manIfeeting itself in their pupila. For if there is any doctrine more than another that our primary teachers believe in, and try to act upon, it is that the opening mind develops and gains power mainly by observation- the use oí its sonses. No one eould sit many minutes in one of our primary departments and come to any other conclusión. Tlie recent introduction, with no little cffort, of the kindergarten with its gifts, songs, playa, etc., almost cxclusively objective in methods, would justify tliis assertion. I should be sorry to have any one suppose that our ehildren in the primary grades are busied with, or mainly taught, through books; and I should be equally sorry to have our teachers belittle in the least the value of books to their pupils. For these books are pricelcss treasures, that contain the best fruit age of the world's wisdom of all time. Certainy the ability to magter books must ever remain the condition of reaching ajiy marked degree of mental power or culture. Now while the general purport of these articles ís to be commended, the methods oí opcratlon advocated are open to question. One of these favors "Taking the children into the ftelds Saturdays." Mr. Sunderland ad-vises practically the game thing, "to explore the ïields, ground, plants, flowers, stanes, bugs, spiders, spiderwebs, insects of a hundred kinds; to explore the ïields amd,. gardens and woods, and brooks and river-banks, within reach- all óf them as full of undreamed-of and wonderful things as any fairy land." This is a beautiful picture of elementary science topics for a primary school as all fairy stories are beautiful; but our schools, like other de' partments of Ufe, opérate under limitations which the fairies cannot remoTe. Firstly, therc are no teachers in the ward schools "competent" to give instruction in ''bugs, spiders, spiderwebs, and insects of a hundred kinds." The schools where our teachers are educated funnlsh no instruction in Entomology. University graduates, with rare exceptions, have fared no better. Secondly, it may well be doubt ed whether any teacher, with her experience fresh in mind, in keeping 30 to 50 ordimary children in the educatiomal path, "vhere she had all the helps of school-room and organizatiOTi, -vould hopefully take her charge to the "woods and brooks and riverbaaiks," with the view of making the excursión educational in character. What with dangers of water, climbing of trees, and racing away from control, the teacher would be for the tnost part in the surge of a veritable pic-nic. Here is a bit of history: One of our teachers undertook one afternoon to take her pupils "to nature." In the midst of the stroll the fire-bell rang. Upon rounding up the party soon after, some of the boys were missing. Tliey had responded to the fire-bell, fireman fashlon. One of these boys was not found by hls parents till late.tliat night ! Who was responsible ? It is exceeding well (or children to go out "to nature," to the fields, the flowers, the brooks, the braclng air, etc, but the ehaperoraes in large part Khould' be their parents. Jloreover a pic-nic, profitable as it is, cannot usually bc made scientific enough to be called educational. vSo far as 1 know there is but one ubi ie school in Michigan; orgnnized specially to study elementary scince. That school has a special sujervising teacher. lts classes never ;o into the fields. Individuals and eaehers gather the materials and ring them to the sehool-room for xamiraation. Perhaps it raay be well to add herc a resume of the observational and cience work done in the Ann Arbor schools below the high school. In the lst and 2nd years there is mueh kindergarten work, including lay modeling, form studies and drawng from objects throughout the ourse. In the 2d and 3d years, classes are .ken to the fields oecasionally for he study of areas and surfaces with he definite purpose of gaining geographiieal notions and representing hem. The use of sand tables in the 2d, 3d, and 4th grades. In the 3d grade lessons on dew, mist, clouds, ivers, sand gravel, clay, etc, etc. As soon as leaves appear in May, he 4th grade begin a daily and orderly course of leaf studie3. At the ame time the 5th grade is similarly engaged upon flowers and sterns, findng all findable pointe, but not atenipting a scientific classification. ai the 4th grade, the reading book is vholly upon flowers and plants; in he 5th grade it is wholly upon aninals, and 'both, as far as possible, are llustrated with the best obtainable pecimons. In grades 5 and 8, pupils study physiology and hygiëne vith a text-book, with special refrence to the effects oi alcohol and tobaceo. In grade S, some excellent vork is done in elementary physics and geology. Tliat in geology, I am nclined to think, will fairly match he best that is done in the same grade of any school in the country. Only a word more is needed. Neithr the quantity nor the quality of his kind of instruction is yet up to he ideal and plans of the teachers in our schools. "We hope in the near uture to place elementary science on a more scientific basis; especially as regards an orderly arrangement of matter ajid graded methods of intrusión.