VOLUME XVII.
The Rules
of This
School:
EW YORK.—A school in
which there are no lessons,
no home work, no examina
tions, no punishments, no
1 rules, no regular hours! A
school in which you can ar-
rive when you like, learn what you
like, talk when you like, laugh when
you like, do as you like.
Is this a schoolboy’s dream? No, it
is a school right here In New York
city. Its students are ordinary chil
dren, just such as you meet every day
in the streets or see in the public
schools; its teachers are men and
women who differ from ordinary men
and women only In their ideas about
how boys and girls should be taught.
To be specific, the school is at No.
104 East Twelfth street. It was start
ed by the Francesco Ferrer associa
tion. It is supported by voluntary con
tributions. Its teachers are Mr. and
Mrs. John R. Coryell and its director
is Bayard Boyesen, who until recently
was a professor of Columbia univer
sity, says the New York World.
School having opened one morning
recently—opened not with the ring
ing of a bell but simply through the
arrival of Mr. Coryell and some of the
pupils—a small seven-year-old boy, pro
duced a “pudding stone” from his
pocket, showed it to Mr. Coryell, said
his father had told him it was sand
stone, and asked Mr. Coryell’s opinion.
The teacher said it was “conglomer
ate” —so called because it was a jum
bled up mixture of a lot of other
stones, fused together by heat.
The boy asked how it had got the
heat. This opened the way to a lesson
in geology and physical geography.
Some of the other children were in
terested ; some of them not. Those who
were listened in silence; those who
were not did something else or talked
among themselves.
His System of Teaching.
. Mr. Coryell traced back the changes
in the earth, told how their history is
known, described the animals, birds
and plants that lived at the succes
sive periods and of which traces are
now found in the form of fossils.
It was not a lecture. He simply an
swerd questions. The boy who had
brought the stone led all the way in
the voyage through the ages, and Mr.
Coryell merely acted as guide. Some
of the other boys followed part of the
way, but one by one they ceased to be
interested and turned away to other
things that interested them more.
The little inquirer, however, grew al
most excited with interest. And when
the journey ended he and his guide
were standing on the edge of the Arc
tic ocean, to the north of Siberia, as
sisting in the work of cutting from the
ice the body of a mammoth that had
been standing there frozen in for tens
of thousands of years. On the way
they had formed the acquaintance of
many extinct beasts with names as
formidable as their pictures.
The journey had led over several
lands. They had spent the greater part
of the time in Siberia, and this in
volved a few words on the geography,
history and government of Russia. No
information was given that was not
sought by questions.
Knowledge Cleverly Instilled.
A little girl brought to school a
piece of kindling wood to which a
small fan-shaped fungus still clung.
She had never seen anything like it
before, nor had any of those tene
ment dwellers among whom she lived.
The children crowded around as she
exhibited the strange object and ask
ed what it was.
Mr. Coryell’s explanation led several
o fthe children to seek further in
formation about funguses. Some of
them asked if they were not poisonous.
One wanted to know why so many
Italians had been poisoned by them
early in the fall. Mr. Coryell said that
this was because at home in Italy they
had been in the habit of eating a fun
gus which was quite harmless, but
that looked almost exactly like one
found here in America that was dead
ly poison.
As they were talking about wood a
boy said that some one had told him
that paper was made from wood, but
he did not believe it. The teacher de
scribed hiw wood is ground into pulp
and pressed out Into paper, and he
added:
“And I have a necktie made of
wood.”
. A chorus asked him to show it to
them. The following day he wore
the cravat, one of those of woven wood
fiber that so closely Imitate silk. He
took it off and passed it around the
class. The little fingers felt it and the
curious eyes scrutinized it closely.
The teacher explained how it was
made. He went on to tell of other
strange uses for wood and paper. That
the latter is pressed into car wheels
ehr Jnmtitim bulletin*
NUMBER 12.
seemed to strike the children as only
less extraordinary than that the for
mer should be made Into neckties.
Methods of Mrs. Coryell.
A group of small children sat around
Mrs. Coryell at a table playing a
game. She had distributed brass rings
among them and asked them to see
who could make the prettiest pattern
with them. Instantly all the heads
were bent over the table and in a few
minutes stars and circles and geomet
rica^designs were taking shape. The
little ones were unconsciously learning
form and order and were adding and
multiplying in their heads before they
even knew figures. Picture books with
animals, flowers, letters, and so on are
scattered about the table and the chil
dren take them up and ask questions
about they just as they please.
One day when a visitor called to
see the school at work he was told
the children were playing. In any
other school it would have been les
son hours. In this school lesson hours
are those in which the children want
lessons, play hours are those in which
the children want to play. It being im
possible to have any unanimity, some
of the children play while others have
lessons, and vice versa, just as the
children please.
They arrive when they like and go
home when they like. But the teach
ers try to make the school so attrac
tive a place that the pupils will come
early and stay late.
Defense of the Project.
“Radical?” said Mr. Coryell, when
asked if this was not a radical depart
ure from the ordinary school. “Yes,
radical in the method of teaching, but
not radical in the things taught. For
we teach the same things that are
taught in other schools. We go upon
the same principles laid down by Her
bert Spencer and by Froebel, which
amount to this, that it is useless to try
to teach children about matters in
which they have no interest.
"We believe that every child inher
its certain abilities and tastes from its
parents, and that it is our duty as
teachers to supply such environment
as will best aid the child to develop
itself along the lines to which it is
best suited. We never teach doctrines
or opinions. We teach facts and their
meanings. We try to show the child
how to think for itself and to form its
own opinions.
“This can only be done in very small
classes, for the work involves careful
personal study of each individual
child. The large classes of the public
schools make it necessary to system
atize everything and to teach children
certain prescribed subjects, whether
these be useful or beneficial to them
or not
“We agree with Dr. Saleeby of Eng
land that modern educational methods
are like cramming a child’s stomach
full of a variety of Indigestible foods
and then giving him an emetic to find
out what he has retained —the emetic,
of course, being the school examina
tion. We give the child only that
which his appetite craves, then we
need no examination emetic to find
out what he has retained.
From Dunces to Great Thinkers.
“The fact of a boy doing well or ill
at the ordinary schopl or college has
no bearing on his future success.
Many of the greatest thinkers the
world has even seen were counted
IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1911.
dunces by their teachers. That was
merely because the teachers were try
ing to make them learn things for
which they had no taste.
“I told one of my old professors at
Harvard recently that the university
men who had made great successes in
life had done it in spite of, and not be
cause of what they learned at the uni
versity.
“When I sent my three sons to Har
vard I told them to disregard marks
and to study what they liked best.
One of them went through with hon
ors, the other two were, from the col
lege standpoint, failures, but this does
not mean that they may not achieve
as great success in life as their broth
er.
"It is just this principle that we are
applying here. It is an experiment
in education. It may fall for lack of
support, but I do not think it will. The
school has been open only ten days,
but we have 15 pupils, a few of whom
have not yet come, but are expected
in a day or two They pay nothing for
tuition. Their parents subscribe or
not, as they like, to the support of the
school. As a matter of fact, they all
do like, for they are all persons in
terested in the cause.
"The experiment is worth trying,
for the older method is a failure. Our
public school teaching, or lack of
teaching, is largely responsible for the
increase in crime. The most intelli
gent school teachers know this and
many of them are watching this ex
periment of ours with deep interest.”
“How would it be possible,” Mr.
Coryell, was asked, "to put such a sys
tem as yours into effect in the pub
lic schools? Would it not require a
vastly larger staff of teachers, more
and smaller class rooms and many
million dollars more every year?”
Sees Saving of Millions.
“Certainly," was the reply. “But we
should save more millions than it
would cost, for it would largely de
populate our reformatories, prisons,
jails and hospitals. We had far bet
ter take the millions these now cost
and devote them to education of the
sort that* fits men for useful careers
along the lines for which they are
most suited.”
The Ferrer school is not yet fur
nished. The w T alls are bare save for
a few striking pictures; the floors are
almost bare; the furniture is of the
cheapest, but there are flowers on the
tables and mantlepiece and brightly
colored picture books for the smaller
children, and everything is scrupu
lously clean.
They would not send a child home
to wash its face or hands, but they
would try in some way to give it an
object lesson in the virtue of clean
liness; for instance it would not be
allowed to handle a pretty book with
soiled fingers, and then it would be up
to Itself to decide whether it preferred
to be clean dr dirty.
So cleverly are such lessons in
stilled that the children prefer to be
clean.
Innocent Question.
Mother —Yes, I shall certainly put
Gladys into some profession so that
she can be of some use in the world.
Gladys—Oh, mummy! Need I?
Can’t I be just an ordinary woman,
like you?—Punch.
Don’t Delay the Game
«
We Have the Goods; we know
you will need them soon.
Why Wait?
I
Why not buy now when you can first ।
of all get the best selection? Next, not be
crowed. When cold weather settles down
on us we will have all we can do, and our
advice is to shop early—get the pick--get
the best attention, and best of all buy
from
THE BIG STORE
We are the people that have the goods; we know
that cotton is cheap; we know and you know the win
ter needs must be had; the only thing is where to buy.
Our store store stands for all that is good and best
in the new way of doing things=-=the new idea is the
the one price and small profit. Then we give
Profit Sharing Coupons
Come today. We are ready. We sell everything
to wear. Yours for more business.
W. S. Myrick & Co.
Milledgeville’s Only Department Store
SI.OO A YEAR.
