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Superintendent Fairbanks on teachers
During the past year your teachers performed faithful work, and gave general satisfaction to the public, and, as a rule, the warmest sympathy existed between pupil and teacher, and excellent order was maintained without resort to punishment. This is one of the marked features of your schools and deserves high commendation.
The school-room should be made as pleasant and attractive as possible. Everything should be done to bring the child there, hold him and interest him in the work, and the teacher is the great factor in bringing about this result.
Possibly there is no other calling that demands such a fund of mental qualities, such rare endowments, such inexhaustible resources, such abundance of human kindness, such love for the work, such untiring energy, so much zeal, and such a keen appreciation of what the work is to accomplish, as does that of the public school teacher. Possessing all these qualities, and being well educated, the teacher must still be an untiring student, never flagging, but pursuing on to broader knowledge and brighter views.
Much has been said about morals in the public schools. As the standard of education is elevated, so is the standard of morals. Educate the people, give them brain capacity, put them in possession of all their powers, and they will be moral--they will be satisfied with nothing else.
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[Contents] [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6] [Chapter 7] [Chapter 8]
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