1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 



97 



acquiring knowledge, of the faculties brought 

 into activity, and the order in which they act. 

 In other words, one must understand how to 

 learn before he can teach. The success of 

 Normal teachers is owing not so much to the 

 amount of knowledge they have acquired of 

 the elementary branches which they study in 

 these schools, as to their skill in developing 

 the faculties of their pupils, and thus bringing 

 their minds into a receptive state. The method 

 of teaching mathematics in these schools is 

 nearly perfect, and the success of Normal 

 teachers in this department is all that can be 

 desired. If they were as successful in teach- 

 ing language, a new era in the history of edu- 

 cation would dawn upon us. Mathematics 

 may be studied successfully in early life, but 

 to master the philosophy of language requires 

 maturity of mind and an extensive acquain- 

 tance with words and their origin, powers and 

 uses. Hence, most young persons are but par- 

 tially successful in teaching language. But the 

 multitude of books and papers in the hands of 

 our youth, and the general habit of reading 

 which they acquire, enable them to use the 

 current language of the day, readily and cor- 

 rectly. The compositions which are weekly 

 read in our district and high schools indicate 

 the degrees of mental improvement made by 

 the pupils, and are the most useful exercises 

 in language in which they engage. They are 

 thus taught to study the meanings of words 

 and select those that will most clearly and 

 most gracefully express the thought which they 

 are striving to utter. 



The methods of instruction in our schools 

 are improving in many respects. The black- 

 board has given a new impulse to many 

 branches of education, and its use can hardly 

 become too extensive. One who has used it 

 in teaching geography and natural philosophy 

 will never dispense with it. We have. seen, 

 within a week, a boy less than twelve years 

 old, go to the blackboard and draw a well-pro- 

 portioned map of our State, divide it into its 

 several counties, mark in their proper places 

 the principal towns, and the mountains and 

 streams, and then name and bound the coun- 

 ties, and tell their shire towns, and describe 

 the natural features of the State. He was 

 taught by a teacher who thought it best to 

 teach children what they need to know. This 

 boy will understand the interests and occupa- 



tions and wants of the people of his State, 

 when he comes into its Legislature, better than 

 he would if he had spent the same amount of 

 time committing to memory long lists of the 

 hard names of South America and Central Asia. 

 On another day, a boy of fifteen went to the 

 board and drew an outline of a railroad en- 

 gine, with its bearing and driving •wheels, con- 

 necting-rods and pipes, and named the several 

 parts and showed their use and how to move 

 the engine backward and forward. This boy 

 has already laid the foundation of a useful and 

 respectable business. 



Too many of our schools are deficient in 

 this practical teaching, in which principles are 

 not only taught, but also their practical appli- 

 cation to the arts and business of life. There 

 needs to be an impulse in this direction, given 

 to all our schools, and it is to be hoped that 

 the Board of Education will take the subject 

 into serious consideration. What is wanting, 

 is, not more attention to special studies, as en- 

 gineering, agriculture, painting, &6., of the 

 expediency of which in our common schools, 

 we have much doubt, but a better method of 

 illustrating general principles by showing their 

 applicability to the arts and common pursuits 

 of life. 



No class of persons among us is more de- 

 serving of support and encouragement than 

 intelligent, faithful, earnest teachers. They 

 are entitled, not only to the wages they receive, 

 but to the countenance, the sympathy and the 

 respect of the entire community. 



ANGOBA GOAT. 



Some twenty years ago we saw consid- 

 erable in the papers about some Cashmere 

 goats which a gentleman by the name of Peters 

 had imported and was breeding in the vicinity 

 of Atlanta, Georgia. But we believe that it 

 was generally supposed that these goats were 

 not the Cashmere but simply the Angora. 

 Some of these animals we believe went to 

 Texas and some to Ohio, and we saw state- 

 ments of their being valued at $600 to $1000 

 each, and their fleece from six to eight dollars 

 per pound. Other accounts represented the 

 whole thing as a speculation or "sell." The 

 past season Hon. Israel S. Diehl received a 

 commission from the Agricultural Department 

 to proceed to Asia and purchase the best vari- 

 eties of the goat that could be found. This, 



