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A SCHOOL SYMPOSIUM. 
WHEN AND HOW TO START THE CHILD. 
The Home Training. 
What preparatory education do you give your 
child before he begins to go to school ? Do you 
believe in sending him at the earliest school age 
(five or six years) ? If living at a distance from 
school, what system of education can a busy 
housewife undertake, for the benefit of children 
between the ages of five and ten years? Are 
your district school and its government perfectly 
satisfactory to you? If not, what departments 
need, In your opinion, especial change and re¬ 
form ? If dissatisfied with the existing manage¬ 
ment of the district school, what individual 
course may be pursued by a parent, to bring 
about a reform ? 
it Depends upon the Child. 
I would no more think of sending a 
child to school before he knew his let¬ 
ters and figures than I would of sending 
him without sufficient clothing, or lunch 
basket. All children do not need the 
same care, and where there are several 
little tots in a class trying to learn their 
A, B C, some will do nicely, some only 
fairly well, while others get such a set¬ 
back and distaste for lessons of any kind 
that it may take a long time to eradi¬ 
cate bad impressions thus made. The 
age at which a child starts to school de¬ 
pends almost entirely upon the child 
himself. If he is strong, well-developed, 
mentally and physically, I would start 
him at six years. Many think this too 
early, but if such a child is well fed and 
the school-room is not overcrowded, and 
properly heated and ventilated, there is 
little danger. A delicate child may not 
be able to go regularly to school before 
he is 10 years, or even older, and if he 
is particularly bright and precocious, I 
would hesitate about it even then. 
When a little country boy comes home 
bright and joyous, with an almost in¬ 
satiable appetite, full of the many won¬ 
derful happenings of the day, goes to 
sleep with the chickens, and is awake 
at the first cock-crow in the morning, 
eager to repeat yesterday’s experiences, 
I am not the least alarmed about the 
work hurting him, no matter what his 
age may be. But if he comes in with a 
drag, has no appetite, is nervous and 
feverish, sleeps poorly and is loath to go 
again, he has no business in school, be 
he six or twelve. Country children, as 
a rule, I believe, can start to school 
earlier than city children. They are 
forced to take much more exercise in 
getting to and from school, and there is 
not the same danger from over-full 
rooms and fetid air. 
“ If living at a distance from school,” 
a busy housewife can take any “system” 
of education for the benefit of young 
children she may map out, if she has the 
will power to carry it through. No mat¬ 
ter at what age a child’s education may 
begin, there must be some system about 
it. The desultory, haphazard way of 
teaching children in many homes is not 
to be commended, and most of our 
bright, up-to-date teachers would rather 
have a pupil absolutely ignorant of the 
alphabet than one whose mind was lit¬ 
erally crammed full of things badly 
learned. The time may have been when 
simply to know a thing was enough ; but 
now, a child must know it, and know 
why he knows it, and how he knows it. 
The “ system ” must be of each one’s own 
devising. The busy mother must, first 
of all, decide that the education of her 
children is of paramount importance, 
before which laces and ruffles, puddings 
and pies, and many other things the 
model housewife indulges in, sink into 
insignificance. It can’t be done on some 
leisure afternoon, either, but will con¬ 
sume many, many, busy forenoons, and 
afternoons as well. If our home-taught 
child is to keep up with those in school, 
it means giving lessons regularly five 
days out of each week, for about nine 
months of the year. But it can be done. 
When our two “young hopefuls” were 
six and eight respectively, it seemed 
impossible to send them to school, so I 
decided to keep a school of two myself. 
The first thing was to see what line of 
work and what books they would have 
in school. By keeping in touch with 
our district teacher, I got along fairly 
well. The next winter, I had not the 
courage to tackle the work again, and 
they were sent to school; but this year’s 
work was not satisf-ictory. We are as 
near the city as the district school, but 
on investigation, I found that there was 
an average of 50 pupils to the room. I 
did not feel like risking our children 
when so small, so I decided to try again 
teaching them myself. The children 
being older, we could work much faster 
than before, and the idea of “ making a 
grade” was a spur to each of us. I as be¬ 
fore frequently consulted with teachers, 
and the result was that, when the 
children were examined for admission 
to the city schools, they made two 
grades, and have not lost them in five 
years. But I am forced to admit that 
these two winters were the busiest of 
my life. Of course, if there had been 
eight or ten children in my family in¬ 
stead of two, I could not have done this. 
There are years when our district 
school and its government are satisfac¬ 
tory—except as to length—and others 
when they are not. Indiana has a school 
fund of $110,000,000 and, we think, the 
best system of schools and finest equip¬ 
ped teachers to be found anywhere; but 
our district schools have not their share 
of the funds, consequently, can’t always 
get the best teachers. Our boys and 
girls use the district school as a stepping- 
stone to something else. They aim to 
teach here a few years, and get money 
enough to go off to college or into busi¬ 
ness, hence much of their work is ex¬ 
perimental, and there is not as much 
pains taken as if these schools were the 
end, instead of a means to an end. In¬ 
diana has 565,780 district-schoolchildren 
who deserve nine months’ school and a 
teacher who is a thoroughly equipped 
State Normal graduate. When we have 
these, we shall solve many domestic 
problems, as well as problems of State. 
The dissatisfaction that now exists 
with the management of our district 
schools is largely due to our township 
trustee, and this will not only always 
exist, but grow worse so long as this 
office is made part of local politics. 
Now I have truly struck a reef. So long 
as fathers are blinded by party ties, so 
long we shall have incompetent or dis¬ 
honest trustees, who will barter even 
their souls for a vote, and can’t be ex¬ 
pected to know a good teacher from a 
poor one. But we must take conditions 
as we find them, and see that our chil¬ 
dren do good, honest work, and individu¬ 
ally give our support to our own district 
school and teacher. 
Indiana. sirs. w. w. stevens. 
The Friday Evening Club. 
The family that has been more or less 
educated in this isolated country place, 
may both encourage and discourage any 
other family so situated, and my large 
experience has proved to me that a great 
deal depends on the child, and its will 
and capacity to receive instruction. 
Teaching my oldest two children their 
letters, 1 offered a bribe of five cents to 
the one who could first give the alpha¬ 
bet correctly, and it was won by the 
baby just able to speak, who learned 
the letters by hearing and seeing the 
others conning their lesson. No one 
attempted to teach her, and it was a 
matter of great surprise and delight 
when she brought the book, and saying 
over the alphabet perfectly, came out 
ahead. A mother who devotes her time 
to her children, and is not overburdened 
with care, can teach her little ones, if it 
is necessary, by planning her work. 
They can read while she darns the socks; 
they can write while she gets the din¬ 
ner ready, and say prepared lessons in 
a half hour that she can surely fit in. 
If she is busy and cannot give them 
present attention, let them pick a few 
odd leaves from her house plants, and 
with a pencil and paper draw a copy of 
them and write against them a descrip¬ 
tion of their shape from a botany ; a 
prize of some trifle will often bring out 
latent talent. I would never send a 
young child to a district school “ at the 
earliest school age, five or six,” for no 
school, unless a regular kindergarten, 
can meet the requirements of such a 
child, and children learn more evil than 
good from the black sheep that are sure 
to be in every flock. 
Speaking now from a pleasant past 
experience, I think that no happier time 
exists in the life of a wife and mother 
than that when, with her children 
around her, she is able to give them the 
first rudiments of education. Teach 
them the first elements of music as a 
recreation, not a task ; interest them in 
natural history, in the birds and trees 
and plants that grow about their home. 
Send Bobby out to pick up a stone, and 
make its formation a lesson in geology, 
while you pare the potatoes ; then set 
the children to work to draw the speci¬ 
men and write all they can remember 
of the conversation. 
For 20 years, composition and elocu¬ 
tion were taught in our home by the 
Friday Evening Club, as it was called. 
We put on our party clothes, if we had 
any, the same as though going to a con¬ 
cert. Then at 7:30, papa was taken by 
the youngest child into the parlor, the 
meeting called to order by the child, 
and a president elected every month. 
First came the paper; it was called “The 
Children’s Home Circle,” and contained 
each member’s composition, signed by a 
nom de plume ; and then notes of the 
week, and often an editorial by the 
mother on some point in the family life 
that needed to be brought to notice. In 
this way, many little reprimands were re¬ 
ceived in good part that would not have 
seemed the same if spoken of in any 
other way. After the paper was ap¬ 
proved and accepted, and the next child 
appointed editor, the programme con¬ 
tinued with music and readings or reci¬ 
tations. 
I remember that, sometimes, we had a 
certain author’s writings for the whole 
evening, and how in the Longfellow 
evening, the children sang and recited 
dialogues from the “Golden Legend,” 
and had tableaux from Evangeline. In 
this way, English literature came to 
them in easy form, and as a pleasant 
memory. They were very happy hours. 
I look back now when the youngest of 
the flock cherishes a line upon his upper 
lip, and looks down on me from his six 
feet of height, and recall the pleasure 
his early efforts in singing and reciting 
gave us. He is more critical in his taste 
now, sings, no doubt, in truer time, but 
I do not think his efforts can give more 
pleasure than they did on the literary 
evenings at home. Now, the railway 
station is in sight of that home, and he 
goes to the city every morning for les¬ 
sons, but I think I can trace in his high 
marks for composition, reading, elocu¬ 
tion and spelling, the influence of those 
early years when happily “ snowbound,” 
we were all together, and mother’s 
teaching sufficed. 
It is true that teachers have many 
disadvantages when striving with boys 
and girls in graded schools, who are 
gradually led along the paths of knowl¬ 
edge ; but they can have counter advan¬ 
tages in the study of the subjects I have 
mentioned that help when further on. 
Teach a child the use of money, and how 
to keep accounts of his expenditure, and 
it is the best practical lesson in arith¬ 
metic. Let him become interested in 
the history of his own locality first, then 
of his country, and after that it is time 
enough to learn that of the world. I 
had a number of study games that were 
played on Saturday night, which was al¬ 
ways kept care-free from lessons,and I re¬ 
member once cutting up a dilapidated 
colored picture book of history and put¬ 
ting the pictures in a box ; then, with 
a set of questions that matched the pic¬ 
tures, it gave us quite an interesting 
knowledge of the chief events of Eng¬ 
lish history, and for a number of years, 
“ history muddle,” as I called it, was a 
leading and instructive game. 
As regards reform in district schools, 
so much depends on the teacher that it 
is impossible to say where to begin. 
Little children’s morals are of the first 
consideration, and they are often cor¬ 
rupted at school. I should insist, as a 
teacher, on being allowed to punish for 
evil speaking more than for imperfect 
lessons, and inculcate regular lessons in 
temperance, truth telling and honest 
dealing of every sort. If the mothers 
were visitors or on the school board of 
management, it would be a good influ¬ 
ence in some cases, and regular visiting 
would remedy some points that fail to 
meet the eyes of men who never look in¬ 
side the school door except at an ex¬ 
pected and prepared-for examination. 
A few studies well learned, perfectness 
instead of a smattering, should be the 
aim in the district school, and then those 
who wish to go up higher, if they are 
fitted for it, will soon master the “ olo- 
gies ” that are taught in higher grades. 
Latin, which is the root of so much that 
follows, should have its beginning in 
the district school, showing children 
how words began, and being necessary 
in every grade. With good teachers, 
there is no reason why country children 
should not fill any sphere in their future 
life work, if given opportunity. 
Canada. annie l. jack. 
(To be continued.) 
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