Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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voLUME TEN NORMAL OFFERING PAGE TWENTM-ONE With the responsibility there always comes the joy of independent effort. After one has learned one's business, so that the exercise of it can be free, without the trammels of the technical, then comes the joy of work. It is worth while to serve a long apprenticeship to acquire details, to learn methods, to become familiar with principles, until those details and methods and principles shall enter into one's very life, and fused together give the freest activity to the mind and heart. lEV6Ilil1Q Boat 5OI1Q My paddle gleams in the sunset light, My heart leaps up at the goodly sight Of black-stemmed pines, against an orange sky ! So smoothly on my boat doth glide, With soft and fragrant banks beside, I know not which is Silence, which is I ! MAUD M. Bkowms, 'oI.

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l PAGE TWENTY NORMAL OFFERING VOLUME TEN El Gontribution. BY CAROLINE HAZARD. HE CELEBRATION of Washington's Birthday sends one - afresh to the study of his wonderful Farewell Address. - H . There is one brief paragraph in this address which ought to appeal very strongly to all who are proposing to have any- thing to do with the teaching profession: Promote then as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of the government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be en- lightened. .Beside the actual teaching of the rudiments of learning, and even the higher branches, including science and literature, the ultimate need must always be the enlightening of public opinion. In a country such as ours, in which it is our glory that every man stands equal before the law, and one man's opinion is as good as another's the only criterion is the actual value to the community of a man's life and thought. The teacher's greatest function is to promote the normal and healthy growth of the pupils under his charge, as the mind awakens to give it proper food, to open out the riches of learning and make the young student understand that he is a part of one great whole and has his share in maintaining his part loyally and honorably. We hear a great deal of systems of foreign education. The German school boy at the age of six begins a rigorous routine. In japan, the whole system is evolved in a wonderful fashion, far up the Nile schools are being founded and conducted on lines of modern education. The young man or woman who proposes to become a teacher should know something of all these movements, for it is impossible to hand on light unless the flame is kindled in one's own mind. There must be enthusiasm as well as learning in the leaders of the pupil, and the students in our normal schools should appreciate their great responsibility to thc state and to the country as future teachers of the youth of their communities. Our schools are after all the bulwark of our democracy, and those who are to teach in them have a responsibility second to none in the land.

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PAGE TWENTY-Two NORMAL OFFERING VOLUME TEN Jmibgewater 1RormaI Elssociation. BY MYRA E. HUNT. HF PIFTY FOURTH convention of the Bridgewater Normal Association met at the rooms of the Twentieth Century Club, Boston, on Saturday, April 27, 1907, with a large attendance. After the social hour and banquet, President john T. Prince - called the meeting to order. Mr. A. G. Boyden gave a hearty greeting to all, and spoke of the plans of the Association for placing upon the front of the school building two bronze tablets,-one to the Pioneers in Establishing the First Normal Schools in United States g the other to the Principals of the First Normal Schools. Mr. Prince then announced the topic for discussion,- Industrial Education, and presented the principal speakers. These were two of the alumni who have had an important part in working out this problem in Massachusetts. Miss Sarah Louise Arnold, Dean of Simmons College, urged that all through school life the pupil should recognize, as fully as possible, that school tasks have a bearing not only upon his own needs, but upon the great needs of the world. Her words were full of faith in the construc- tive genius of America, for she -believes with Dr. Harris that though the path of educational progress is a zigzag course, yet it is ever leading onward toward the best. T Mr. Charles H. Morse, Secretary of the Industrial Commission, presented the problem of the boy who leaves school early, unhtted for any trade, and likely to enter a business establishment to do boy's work with- out any prospect of promotion. To such a boy, the approach of manhood brings dissatisfaction with his situation and little hope of bettering it. The success of graduates from manual training schools, on the other hand, easily proves the great advantage of such an opportunity to many a young man who is not to enter college. Mr. George I. Aldrich and Secretary George H. Martin spoke briefly, emphasizing the fact that intelligence and character count more than skill, and that industrial education is not a new idea, but an old one with new applications. The address of Principal Arthur C. Boyden, telling of the progress of the school aims for the future, was a fitting close to a meeting full of enthusiasm and inspiration.