A CHALLENGE! 

     STARK County pledges herself that more efficient efforts for the arousing of public sentiment in favor of Common Schools shall be made within her limits, during the present year, than in any other county in Ohio. We have already formed a County Common School Association, but not one of those lifeless, nothingless affairs which are so common. We hold frequent and spirited meetings, and intend to persevere in the good work until we make every hill and valley in Old Stark resound with the merry song of the happy school-boy. Auxiliary Associations have already been formed, or soon will be, in every township in the county, and arrange­ments will be made to have meetings in every School District, and ad­dresses delivered on the importance and improvement of our Common Schools. The citizens, where these meetings are being held, turn out with alacrity and spirit, and are eager to listen to and adopt suggestions which will improve their schools. Our addresses are all to be plain and practical, and above all to be entirely devoid of those Sophmoric flights and flourishes, which have so completely disgusted community with ora­tions on education. Counties of Ohio, Stark has thrown down the glove, which one of you dare take it up?

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CHALLENGE No. II 

     WE, of the town of Massillon, believe we can safely challenge any town or city in the State of Ohio, or even in the great North West, to exhibit a better District School House than ours. Our building is of brick, three stories high, and sixty by ninety feet on the ground. The school rooms are from twelve to fourteen feet in height, and are sufficiently large to accommodate six hundred pupils, The basement story is being neatly finished to be used as a dwelling by some family whose business it will be to sweep and take care of the house. The building is furnished with forty feet in length of scrapers, and with mats at each door, for cleaning feet; with brick pavements from the front gate to the various entrances; with neat and comfortable desks and seats ; with good ventilating apparatus ; with two hundred and forty feet in length of hard plaster black-boards; with a bell weighing three hundred pounds ; with a library of three hundred volumes; with outline maps, charts, and mottoes; and with a clock and thermometer for each room. There are convenient entries supplied with hooks for the clothing and hats of males; and private dressing rooms furnished with mirrors, brushes, etc., for females. The house has an elevated, airy location, overlooking the winding valley of the Tuscarawas river for miles. The lot on which the house stands, contains about two acres, and is shaded and adorned with the trees which nature planted and reared; and the whole is en­closed with a neat, substantial, painted fence. Were it proper for the writer of this article to do so, he would say that there are seven very clever Teachers engaged in this " pleasant School;" although he dares not speak so flattering of all, yet he has no hesitation in saying that five of the seven are undoubtedly downright nice Teachers, for they are Ladies in every good sense of the word. 

     Now, friendly reader, although we have a better school house than you, yet do not imagine that we are inclined to ape the fashion of some who live in fine houses, and say " not at home " to those who call upon us, but rest assured, that should you ever travel through this wheat Egypt of Ohio, and call upon us, we will welcome you right heartily to our literary, hospitalities, and with great pleasure will enter your honorable and honored name upon the Massillon Union School Register of Visitors' Names.

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MEMORY 

     AMONG the many moanings of parents and Teachers, it is not very uncommon to hear them complain that "John has no memory." "Susan forgets one lesson while learning another." "Sam can remember all the foolish stories, and silly speeches, he ever heard, but can remember nothing about his books." Now, how far the complainers are responsible for this want of memory, or rather, for this defective memory, will appear by a little examination. 

     No person will deny that every child who is compos mentis, has a retentive memory, for something. One remembers what he learns in his book: another, what he hears in conversation: a third, the form and mechanism of a piece of machinery. Now each one of these, has a memory retentive in his own department. The question, then, for us to examine, is, in what respect does the memory of these children differ, and what is the cause of this difference. 

     We think we shall join issue with no one, when we assert as a general fact, that, the length of time the knowledge of any object, or principle, will be retained by the memory, depends entirely on the state of the mind with reference to that object or principle at the time the knowledge is being received. 

     Granting this general principle, the solution of our question becomes easy. If the child he more deeply interested in "stories" than in study, then will he remember stories better than lessons. If he is more attach­ed to wheels than to hooks, then will he remember the mechanism of a piece of machinery, longer than he will the contents of a book.

     The very first condition, on which depends the memory of a fact or event, is an undivided attention. An undivided attention can only exist where there is a deep and absorbing interest. 

     If the Teacher succeeds in exciting more interest in the Geography recitations, than in those of the other branches, then he will find his scholars remember Geography better than they do other studies. .This is true of any other branch. Hence, the perfect Teacher, must, not only perfectly understand the branches of science he teaches, but must, also, be enabled to make every recitation extremely interesting; because when the mind is deeply interested on any subject, it can hardly avoid close thought, and arduous labor, with reference to that subject; and mental attainment, without mental labor, (if such a thing be possible,) is necessarily of short duration. Hence, we may finally conclude, that the memory of a principle in science, depends almost entirely on the amount and kind of mental labor devoted to the study of that principle. This may be illustrated by a figure. Suppose we represent that class of minds-) that forget one lesson while learning another, by a gallon jug, (though a pint bottle would be a more fit emblem of some.) Now, if we begin to pour water into this jug, it will hold until we have poured in just one gallon, and no longer. It is true that another pint might be forced into the jug, but it would displace just one pint of what was there before. So with the minds of many pupils. They seem to retain well what they learn for a few months, until the jug gets full, and after that, they only acquire a new lesson by the loss of an old one. If they are questioned about what they learned a few weeks ago, they will be as mute as though they were born but yesterday. Another class of minds might be represented by an India-rubber jug. Though when in its natural state this would hold only a gallon, still by warming a little, it might be made to hold a little more ; but a decrease of temperature would cause the surplus all to waste again. This jug would represent the minds of those pupils who seem to advance a hale and retain something they learn, while under the warming influence of the teacher's presence, but the chilling effect of a three-months' vacation will cause the mind to con­tract to its former limits, and the pupil enters the school as ignorant as he did the previous term. 

     These two classes of pupils seem to think their business in the school­room is to sit as passive recipients, and watch their teacher as a young robin would its dame, merely opening their mouths to receive their portion when their turn comes. 

     That class of pupils why retain the knowledge they get, those who are said to have good memories, cannot, perhaps, be compared to any­thing material. They labor actively to obtain their knowledge. They also seem to know that mental labor increases the size of the mind, as much as physical labor does the body. The relation of knowledge to mind appears to be such, that just enough mental labor is required in obtaining a knowledge of any fact or principle, to increase the capacity of the mind sufficiently to retain that knowledge when obtained. All knowledge got without this labor, will find no resting place in the mind. It will be forgotten as soon as learned. 

     The difference in the memory of different persons, then, seems to depend not so much on the mental constitution, as on the mode of get­ting facts to be remembered. 

     If this view of memory be correct, then the following directions will form a system of mnemonics by which every teacher should shape his mode of instruction. 

1.      Endeavor to make every study interesting to every pupil. 

     2. Have some exercise for every scholar, that is well adapted to the cultivation of attention. Oral examples in Mental Arithmetic make an excellent exercise for this purpose. 

     3. Let every teacher and parent reject the "pouring in" method of teaching. Let pupils learn to get ideas by the exercise of their own minds. If a pupil finds difficulty in solving a question, that difficulty is his mental aliment. Overcoming the difficulty is the very thing that will give growth to the mind, and make room for the knowledge when he gets it. There would be just as much consistency in the teacher's eating the pupil's dinner for him, as there would be in removing his difficulties and solving his problems. 

     The principle business of the teacher should be, to present proper subjects to be learned, teach the pupils how to study; and see that les­sons are well obtained; and not to think for his pupils, and make their caputs the passive recipients of his cogitations.

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For the Free School Clarion.

MORAL EDUCATION.—No. 3.

BY REV. 51. C. BRIGGS.

[Continued from page 41.]

      In the penultemate paragraph of the last number, the revealed will of God was assumed to be the test and measure of moral propriety. This thought it may be well to pause a little and survey.

All nations, in their legislative and judicial arrangements, have proceeded on the presumption, that there exists some fundamental!' and common ground of obligation. Civil government must stand on moral. The religion of a country furnishes its moral code, and that becomes the substructure on which civil enactments stand. The operation of gov­ernmental machinery, then, must depend on the quality and generality of the religious knowledge. In all Christian countries, the sacred wri­tings, containing, as they are supposed to do, the expressed will of the Fountain of authority, are considered of binding force in morals, and are the acknowledged basis of civil legislation. 

     Eminent standard writers on jurisprudence state it as an undisputed truth, that Christianity is the basis of the Lex non seripta, or common law, and surely it is likely to be the substructure on which modern statute law is intended to repose. In our country, Congress, the legislatures of the states, the highest courts of judicature, and the national sentiment, have decided that Christianity is the religion of our country, and the scriptures are of supreme authority. Indeed, it is confessed by men to whom the nations listen with reverence, that the freest and benignest existing governments must fall with the Christian system. Shall mention such men as Story, and Parsons, and Marshall, and Kent at home? 

     The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have decided that to blaspheme the name of Christ, or ridicule the Scriptures is an offence against the peace and liberties of the State. 

The very notion of a government supposes an acknowledged common authority; and such facts as are stated above, of which a few have been selected from many, are quite sufficient to make certain verdent young men pause and take time to blush, before they repeat the stale and stereotyped cant of ignorance, that these notions concerning the Bible are the dogmas of the sanctimonious. Such specimens of precocity are safely left in the hands of jurisprudentialists, and may be spared the pains of caustics from divines.

[To be continued.]

 

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