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Show LMPB0TEMENTS IN TEACHING. I The New York Times in an article: on tho public school system, referring especially to primary education, says that the besetting ein or weakness in the school teacher is tho falling into routine. Teaching has loo often been a parrotdike repetition of words and phrases, and tho mind of neither instructor in-structor nor pupil has worked originally. origi-nally. It used to be thought that anybody was good enough to be an infant Bchool teacher, and mechanical memorizing came to be almost the only object of the popular school. Instructors have long beeiivyorking to remedy this defect. One method ot attaining an improvement is by tho phonetic alphabet, by which children aro taught all theeouuds of the various vari-ous letters. Among the seven sigus, for instance, of the letter A, each little lit-tle child must be able to distinguish each. Under this ingenious system, which is even more generally eru- ployed in the industrial schools for the1 poorest children, a foreign youth has been known to learn the letters and read in somewhat advanced readers in fix weeks. In reference to "object teaching'" which has been introduced into many of the New York primary schools, the Times says: This evstTn rfnuiro?. first rtf nil. i)it the pupil, however vouti, sh-uld uso hi own mind actively. He canuot rnskii a mrrot-lik-H answer; he must compare and think. Ho is taught natural history by oberving, and then carefully tracing oat the apparent purposes of each oil lilv or peculiarity he sees. It is astonishing how much science a child, almost unconsciously, un-consciously, can tlm soon acquire. All i lie various primary branches are thus finft'ly mado more' interesting, and the i'hi!d trained to observe and to work oul its own way. Such teachine. of cou'sa, I? no sinecure It is a very diti'ere it thing from the ld humdrum, niecliamcil methofls. Every night the object teacher rven of small children must study and practice her tak. Such tae crs deserve, de-serve, of course, higher remunerate n toan thoso work'ntr on t e old syitcin. |