Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 1899)
VOL. XIV., NO. XLV. ESTABLISHED IN 188 PRICE FIVECBNTB ,.-r-fW ". M.,'Tfi'v, '",,r?. ip1' r dCi& V. . aV. BiiBa m assi J' ' " fP ' " ' 4F - . JKa-"- wmM? MmtimiiHh rite LINCOLN, NBBR., "SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1800. Jmm hNTKBEOIN THE POflTOVTICB AT LINCOLN At witrown ct.am mattkk. PUBLISHED EVKBY SATURDAY THE COURIER PRIlTlG JID PUBLISHING CO Office 1132 N street Up Stain. Telephone 384. S VRAH B. HARRIS, Editor Subscription Kate? In Advance. Per annum 9100 Six months 75 Tbreo months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 The Cookies will not be rMponilbln for to! nntary communications onion accompanied by return poatujre. Communications, to receire attention, must bo sUned by tho full name of the writor, not merely as a a-narantee of good faltb, but for publication If adrltable, ?s u o 0 OBSERVATIONS. 1 A Training School. The twoyear's course in pedagogy at the state university, trie ctftlfse'at the state normal school and at other schools in the1 state have, so far, been unrecognized by the public school system in Lincoln. Dr. Gordon, the city superintendent of schools has a plan by which, without a revolution, the system can be brought into rela tion with the university and all other scientific instruction In pedagogy. Superintendent Gordon's plan is to supply the places of those teachers who resi'gn,wlth experts who wll be assisted by graduates from the state university department of pedagogy or from Normal school courses. These assistants will serve for two years in the training school without pay for the sake of the training. The training school in fitting teach ers for tho profession will add to the professional dignity of the teaching' corps It will unify the methods and the results can be studied as satisfac torily us laboratory experiments There is no reason why teachers should not be as professionally Jealous of the standing of their itfofesslon as members of the bar. The changes proposed ' by Superin tendent Gordon contemplate no ab rupt Innovation but a gradual unify ing of the system and an intelligent implication of the results of the pscy biological study of the child. Stolid Convention. A mob of people inspired by hate ir Ifin.i.i...- m . .. uii - imbuing lorucnmejusc commit- t ,,i i . . .' ... "" mugs to express itseir and rrequeni I y hangs somebody. Occasionally tho real perpetrator of a crime is punished by society. Not by the four hundred the mysterious select In every place who move in and out among us or above us conscious that they are not as other men though none can tell" why but by our neighbors and by Infuriated men of all professions and trades whom the victim never saw before but who represent to him out raged and militant Society. And In spite of Ward McAllster's new phrase, wh ch has found i permanent place in English,the man about to be punished by a mob has a truer Idea of what so ciety is, its real coherence and organic relationship to life than the famous Brummel of this century. A crowd of men with their coats off and with eyes gleaming in ferocious hatred of the man who has assassi nated society, or connived against it is Individually unsolfconae.Jo.us, (see Victor Hugo, Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens, and historians of the 'No Popery," "Bread," French revolu tionand anti s'avery riots). A mob Is one gigantic being, crude and with pr m'.tive emotions which it will sat; isfy. An audience of men and women listening to an opera or to an author lecturing on the art of writing, an audience which rustles and gleams and glistens and exhales the faint, clean odors of the well-bred and de voutly washed, Is selfconscious.' Every member of such an assembly acts lite all the rest.' Eccentric' conduct or f costume is unusual and when an ac cident occurs the dread of being con spicuous paralyzes the wills of those who might accomplish a harmonious readjustment. This timidity of a well dressed and cultured audience was apparent the other evening when Mr William Dean Howells the most famous and most popular American novelist lectured here. After he had been speaking for ten minutes ho looked appeallpgly at the open door on the left of the stage through which he had entered The curtains at the top of the stage were billowed by a breeze, or rather, a draught which Is the name of an in door wind. Mr. Howell's voice falter ed and as his silent appeal met no res ponse he shut the door himself. As the breeze still neatly blew the dlstln gu shed v.sitor off the stage, he ap peale'd to anyone In the house, who might be connected with the maoage ment, to shut tho window or the door that admitted so much air. Still no body shut tho window and Mr. How ells' voice grew hoarser and hoarser and every woman in the boue with a husband or a brother or a father sus ceptible to draughts was wref.'hed be cause the gentle novelist who has set down naught in malice and whose books hive encouraged pilgrims to march on, and. cheered the .stranger and the desolate, was taking cold. Auy man or woman there could have found the manager or his deputy In the box office or behind the scenes, but everyone was afraid of being thought offcious. Consequently Mr. Howel s took cold, ran the risk of pneumonia and will remember Lincoln as a place of draughts Inhabited by a stolid unsympathetic people who only move their feet a trifle restlessly when a stranger appeals to them to end his sufferings. A primitive people or a people, perhaps not more highly culti vated, but more sophisticated, more used to the, ways of the world would have responded to the appeal of a man taking his death o'cold, but we are In that half cured state of mowed grass before it becomes hay. We are not certain of ourselves and more than all that, we are In-terrorthat some travel ler will discover our '"country" con A New School Howe. A new building must be erected next year and Superintendent Gordon believes sthat the crowding in tho eighth grade can be most happily r -lieved by building a school house for that grade on the high school grounds, By this plan two objects will be ac complished. The first one has already been mentioned, namely, to relieve the crowded ward schools all over the city. The second object of the change Is to smooth the transition to the high school from the eighth grade, Under present conditions the first year students in the high -school 'ad just themselves with no little frictldu to the.Jarger, liberty and greater per sonal responsibility of the high school regime. Accustomed to definitely as signed lessons, to the study of text books and of 1 ttle else, to hours of study prescribed by the teacher and to coming to the sessions of the school as school. children and not as older students coming from and going to lectures and recitations, the sudden liberty and greater personal responsi bility, the change in the position and function of the high school teacher wtio-is a lecturer rather than a discip linarian and taskmaster, is apt to un settle the habits of the first year high school youngsters. The responsibility and self government Is beneflcla', The young generation cannot too soon discover that their destinies are self wrought and not alio ted to them by fathers, mothers, and teachers. But the transition is too abrupt. With all .the. eighth grade pupils on the high school grounds h'gh scCool methods and rules of conduct wou'd lose their novelty and the graduate from the eighth grade, would scarcely be aware .or tlie gradual change of the te'atihWs attitude to him and of his 'own rela tion to the body of knowledge. Developtneat To "let well enough alone" is apt td stay progress If the farmer who sent his boy to mill wtyb a bag of corn over the horse's back balanced by a stone, had opt accepted the advice of a stranger to push the corn into the two extremities of the bag and throw the stone away, a,n unnecessary bur den would have galled the back of tho' h irso for a much longer time. Two quite different departments of the city are being administered by new men. Chief Clement of the fire department Is making a study of fire-, men and fire engines and the water supply hoping to Increase the effici ency of the men and their Instruments in puttlngout fire. The superintend ent of t,he city schools desires to in crease the efficiency of' the teach'ng force. Both of these men are students the one of fire and fire apparatus and t'.ie otherof children and teachers and the best methods by which the latter can induce the former to exert their best endeavor. We have invited these men to administer these two depart ments. As a city will It not be sensible to l'sten to them when they propose to change the system, hereto fore In use. for the purpose of bring ing about more saiisaotory results. Tfr Iforfccrs. Everyone recognizes the fascination or watching a clever blacksmith shoe a horse or a joiner fitting the Interior parts of a house together or a sculp tor modeling in clay. Gifted work men whose tools are brushes and whose medium is canvas and colors, or clay and a modeling tool are seriously hindered by the crowds that gather In 'front of the windows and whose bodies intercept the i'ght. The merch ants who have taken advantage of the universal penchant for seeing other people work have placed rug makers, glass-blowers and even shoos makers in their store windows and their Industry is continually observed Even the asphalt workers who laid a block on N and a block on Twelfth street a few weeks ago were flanked by an audience which followed the s'ow extension of the pavement until It was complete. Mr. Howell's story of novels and how they are written, and his opinion as to those which are worthy and will live and of those which are tainted with the incurable malady of untruth and will not live, was of great inter est. Perhaps the business or the reo reation of the majority of his listeners was writing and literature. Not that their work can be at all compared to his, but as a carpenter might be Inter ested in the talk of an archletct as to tho real meaning or a house, Mr. How ell's audience listened to his- lecture on the different kinds of noyels, the one kind he thought worth while and his own method. In, writing them. Mr. Howell's eminence, his years of experience t and experiment and the acceptance of the soundness of hi .theories by many if not by, most novel Juts discourage criticism by a carpen ter of words, but It is undoubtedly, true that readers of his earlier and later books turn with Increasing ap petite to Their Wedding Journey; 1 be Lady of the Aroostook and Tba Undiscovered Country-books with a plot and incidents as well as examples of psychological Investigation. , M II SI A i'l I i i All YllfcsirAiiTtfWEJwi'. w
