Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1874 — What Teachers Should Read. [ARTICLE]

What Teachers Should Read.

Any teacher who desires to keep pace wjtip the progress being made in educational matters, must . read. He must read sc’aool journals; he, must read books- on Theory and.i Practice; be must read what think- i ing men say about the philosophy 1 of teaching; he must study well the J subjects he has toteach, and must : make special preparation for each! day’s work: these are a matter of' course. All the better class of teachers do these things already, ; and the time is rapidly approach—ing when a teacher who neglects these means of preparation and , self-improvement, will not be needed in the profession. » But teachers should know something outside of their school books and school work. They should know something of the world and ; of what is going on in it To gain this knowledge they-must read: 1. Books Any teacher who will industriously spend his leisure time in systematically reading books on history, travel, etc,, will be surprised at the amount of information gained in a single winter. 2. Teachers must read magazines and" newspapers. Every teacher should take one good magazine, and at least one srood newspaper, his oWn county paper certainly, and another metropolitan weekly, if possible. A teacher who does not read regularly his own local paper ought to.be ashamed of himself. Teachers must read or become drones in society.— lndiana School Journal. ‘ Colonel Merrill, chief of the river improvements in the Ohio Walley, proposes to improve the navigation of the Wabash and White riVfers, by slack water, from movable dams which are to be set up in low water, and almost entirely removed in high water. This system, he says, has been in use in France and Belgium, and experience shows that “the level of floods is not affected by them.” In other words, the dams do not cause an overflow of the adjoining territory during high water, and do provide slack water when-the rivers are low.