Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1885 — DULLNESS OF PUPILS. [ARTICLE]

DULLNESS OF PUPILS.

Paragraphs from a Western Teacher’s Address. By dullness* is meant that low order or temporary condition of the intellect, which renders it unable to comprehend, to understand, to reason. Dullness is the result of either pre-natal or postnatal causes. Among the most prominent pre-natal causes are parental intemperance, including excesses of all kinds, parental disease, accidents, and direct transmission according to the law that begets like. L The dull brain is a dark, cold and dreary prison house, along whose mildewed walls, pale and sickly faculties, with outstretched palms, go slowly, groping, searching for a crevice, no matter how small, through which a gleam of light may creep. We find existing outside the school, continuous or remitting causes, producing permanent or remittent dull 8; ness. Most prominent among the causes of permanent dullness are injury from accident, injury from punishment, fright, use of intoxicating liquors, use of tobacco, general ill treatment, night study. A few of the many causes of remittent dullness are worry and improper clothing, improper food, over feeding, under feeding, loss of sleep, over exertion, want of exercise, poor ventilation, injudicious punishment. Teachers sometimes ungratefully complain that they receive no credit. Teachers receive credit for this accumulation of dullness; from the parents, the superintendent, and the school board. Did Johnny fall in his infancy and crack his skull, the teacher receives the credit for his consequent dullness. Does Tommie steep his tender brain in whisky, beer, or tobacco, the teacher receives credit for his slow progress in his studies. Does Samuel’s father nightly make him the target at which to fire stove-wood and small articles of furniture, closing the parade with a few brick-bats aimed with pice precision at the boy’s head, the teacher is accredited with the boy’s lack of mental activity next day. Straps and bands are drawn so tightly around children’s limbs and bodies that the circulation of the blood is impeded; children are chilled with too little clothing, or weighted down from the hips with too much; they are stuffed at meals like a turkey prepared for the oven, or starved until their only thought is a crust; they are fed on indigestible food; allowed to keep late hours at the ball, the opera, the skating rink, or in the alleys ; they are allowed to stagnate in fashionable parlors until the blood forgets how to circulate in their veins; they are put to bed in rooms hermetically’ sealed, to breathe the same foul air over and over again until the whole system is poisoned, and yet ther* teacher receives all the credit for their mental incapacity. Those conditions, methods, and influences of the school, that may produce continuous or remittent dullness, are numerous. These may be divided into two classes—those that effect the mind indirectly, through the medium of the body, and those that effect the mind directly, through the medium of the emotions or by exertion of the brain. Among the most prominent of the first class are insufficient ventilation, want of exercise, excessive punishment or improper forms of punishment, imp roper positions, depriving of recess, and detaining after school for study. The responsibility for poor ventilation, the teachers may consistently divide with the board of education, who build hermetically Sealed boxes into which they pack children in rows, order teachers to pour over them the oil of control, and then wonder that they come out sardines. For the other causes of this class, the teachers alone must stand responsible. For dullness from over study, the teachers may share the responsibility with parents who constantly urge rapid promotion, and with school officers who put up examination papers for competitive display, and who hold up, for emulation, teachers who have accomplished remarkable results. Constant censure, no commendation, contionuous storming, ridicule, sarcasm, teacher too solemn, teacher too dignified, teacher too monotonous, punishments which destroy the pupil’s selfrespect, such as sitting on the rostrum, standing on the knees, standing on one foot, standing with back to class, standing with book on the head or on one or both outstretched hands, standing with face in the corner, sitting with the opposite sex, mouth tied up, eyes tied up, any punishment before the school The child’s emotional nature may be likened to a telephone system, of which the mind is the “central office,” sending out nerve tubes in all directions to receive dispatches, which are immediately conveyed to the “central ”

Let us step into the central office and take observations. The owner of this central is named John. Hush! a ring. “What is it?” asks central. “John, you aie a perfect numbskull!” Down goes the index ten degrees. “You don’t know as much as you did last year ?” Index ten degrees lower. “Come to me this minute!” Index to thirty. “Turn your back to the class!” Index to forty. “Stand on,one foot!” Index to fifty. “Now, children, you may all laugh as much as you please!” Index drops to the very bottom of the instrument,, where it stands for several hours, perhaps days. Let us enter another “central.” The owner of this central is named Jake. Here we find the index below zero. Hark! a ring: “What is it?” asks the central. “Jake, what makes you look so dull this morning, did yon have bad dreams?” “No, ma’am.” Index goes up ten degrees. “Did you leave your smiles all at home in your other coat pocket?” “No, ma’am, but I can’t get this example.” Index goes up ten degrees higher. “Is that all?. Well, I wouldn’t look so solemn about that; remember, it is the bright face that wins. Bring me.your slate and book.” "Yes’m.” Index goesto 100 above at a single bound. Let us withdraw from the office. : To cdnclude in the words of the immortal Widow Bedott, “We are all poor creeturs.” — G. T. Johnson, in Kansas City Journal. It is said that Lucy Stone regretfully admits that while women do most

of the amateur playing on pianos, they compose scarcely any of the music. Never mind, Lucy, when you stop to think of the murders that are committed every day on account of the good old, songs, such as “I’m Calle t Little Buttercup,” “Whoa Emma,” “Grandfathers Clock,” etc., etc., that foolhardy persons persist in singing or whistling, there will be one consolation in knowing that very few of your sex will have to account for any of the deaths. The horrid men who composed the music will be held resonaible and will be punished accordingly.— Pectfs Sun.