OUR COMMON SCHOOLS. • 205 



^very poor in something else. If they are very good in arithmetic, they are very 

 poor in grammar. That, usually, is a detested study in the commou schools. 

 As a rule the girls are willing to take it up, and sotuetimes become proficient 

 in it, but the boys don't want to have anythiug to do with it. We should have 

 fewer studies and it should be the duty of the patrons of the district to see that 

 their children have proper instruction in these studies. 



Mr. Peabody: My education was wholly from the common schools, I wish 

 to see them upheld. It is common to decry them in contrast with the high 

 schools, but Ave cannot all afford to send our children to town to school, there- 

 fore let us sustain tlie common schools and take interest enough in them to 

 visit them and aid in their work. 



If we had even a poor little mangy calf way over in the field, we would go 

 .and visit that calf every day and tend it and see how it is getting along, but we 

 have our own chiklren go to school the whole term and not see them once. 

 It will help the teacher and help the school to visit it, and if there is any levity 

 going on the moral support of the visitor should be against it. Make the 

 common school popular. If the patrons take an interest in the school, the 

 children will, but if the patrons do not come near the school the children will 

 think it does not amount to anything. 



I know as a teacher that those scholars that were taught at home made great 

 progress. What the president mentioned as to thoroughness in connection 

 with arithmetic, reminds me of an incident in my life. I was at one time 

 .at Wellsburg in Canada. I was buying cattle at the time and lacked some 

 funds and went into a bank to draw a draft on Detroit. I figured out the 

 present worth. Gold was equal to ^1.14 and of course greenbacks were worth 

 less. The banker looked at me after I had figured the interest and said: How 

 •did you do that ? and I said, " why, simply figured it," and he said: '* Do you 

 know there is not a person that comes here in this bank that could get at the 

 present worth of money." " It seems to me," said I, " that if they ever had 

 attended school they could do that." 



Mr. Fryer: The ideas expressed in the paper are sound. It is a grand idea 

 to have a township board of trustees, — competent men to look after matters, to 

 carefully examine the candidates to take charge of the schools of our land. 

 -Money should not be counted in the education of our boys and girls. 



The greatest trouble is deficient preparation on the part of the teachers. 

 Arithmetic and grammar are not in the books, they are in the mind, and the 

 teacher must understand the nature of the mind and learn to draw out and 

 ■ develop these powers so that the scholars may become able to think out for them- 

 . selves arithmetic and grammar. We are not sufficiently interested in develop- 

 ing the minds of our children. We take every interest in growing a fine horse 

 and are comparatively indifferent in human education. 



The farmer must not think that for his own calling a poor quality of training 

 .is good enough. It is a wrong idea to have all the graded schools placed in the 

 villages and towns. To be a successful and accomplished farmer requires the 

 mind to be thoroughly trained in more lines of thought than any otlier profes- 

 sion and the occupation gives greater opportunities for the study and original 

 investigation in the natural sciences than any other. 



Kev. Koberts: Why not change our law, so as to require each district to pro- 

 vide eight months' school and perhaps fix a minimum teacher's salary. Stu- 

 •dents often maintaiu themselves by teaching farmers' children in vacation, 

 ^when they themselves are wholly unfit. 



