Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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Volume XI NORMAL OFFERING Page 19 course of lectures was by Prof. Arnold Guyot, who came over with Agassiz, who revolutionized the teaching of geography in this country by teaching that geography is the study of the earth as the home of man. On Tuesday evenings once a fortnight the students had a social gathering at the house of the Principal, and on alternate Friday evenings we had our Lyceum meetings, with debates by the young men, and the Normal Offering a paper sustained by the women. These were live meetings. Most of the students boarded in the families of the village at two dollars a week. They roomed in chambers mostly. Some were so lofty that they had attic chambers which looked out upon the front view of life, while some had to be content with the posterior view. A few boarded themselves. Some of the men roomed in Bachelor's Hall, and some formed a Club and Madam Loring cooked their meals for them. Physical exercise was not neglected though we had no gymnasium. The students knew the names of all the streets, and knew all the roads for miles around, and many a, lesson on nature study was learned in their long walks. Carver's Pond in those days was noted for its lilies and snapping turtles. Lover's Lane, a cart path through the woods from Bedford Street to South, across the acreage now known as New Dublin, was distinguished for its scenic beauty. Round baseball was a regular game in the spring, and genuine football, without any toggery or rooting, was a vigorous fall game in which the ball was kicked sky-high. The school was an Institution even then though it was only eight to nine years of age. Institution is the act of setting up g establishment. It was an organized body of persons for the distract purpose of educat- ing teachers. An institution is built upon the men who found it. In this case the first members of the State Board of Education and the first Principal of the school. He was a man of heroic temper, an ardent lover of truth, with keen insight and great analytic power, a'man of faith and prayer, a ripe scholar, who gave hinzsrof to his work, and the word fail was not in his vocabulary. Thank God for the Bridgewater spirit of progress, of enlargement, of culture, of devotion, of service, of inspiration, which has quickened so many thousands of young lives. It has been the animus of the Institution from its very beginning, and is marching on to multiply its achievement.

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Page 18 NORMAL OFFERING . , Volume XI except Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. The studies of the first term were Arithmetic, Mental and Written, Mechanics, Physiology, Grammar, Geography of North America, and the Drawing of Maps. ' The studies of the second term were Arithmetic, Hydrostatics and Pneumatics, General Grammar, Punctuation, Parsing, Physical Geography, Geography of South America and Asia. 4 Studies of third term were Astronomy, Bookkeeping, Optics, Electri- city, etc., Theory and Practice of Teaching, Parsing, Geography of Europe, Africa and Oceanica. During all the terms all the pupils attended to Reading, Spelling, Enunciation, writing abstracts, essays, etc. The elecfive studies were Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Survey ing, Itellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, Natural History, Constitution of Massachusetts and of the 'United States. Students might extend their course as far' as they chose. We studied Arithmetic very thoroughly, also Geography and Grammar. For a text book in Geography, we used McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary a volume four inches thick. Geo- graphy was then considered to be the a'esc1fzflz'on of the surface of the earth and its products. De Sacy's General Grammar and Greene's Analysis were fruitful studies, the latter included logical analysis of the thought, and grammatical analysis of the expression. Three of the young men made a Trigonometrical survey of Carver's Pond and mapped it. This map was used by the publisher of a map of Plymouth .County Psychology had not then'come into the course of study, but Mr. Tillinghast was our text book in the Theory and Art of Teaching known and read by all of us. Horace Mann closed his service as Secretary of the State Board of Education in 1848 and was succeeded by Dr. Barnas Sears. He- secured for the school two most fruitful courses of lectures. One by Louis Agassiz, the great naturalist, who had recently come to this country. The first sentence of his first lecture was I see before me many bright eyes, I have come to help you see. Then he delineated upon the ,board a huge grasshopper and showed us how he lived and used his sensegorgans. We sovved the seed of the objective study of natural objects which has sprung up and borne fruit in our courses in Natural Science. The other

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Page zo NORMAL OFFERING -:Volume xr Manual Training. Walter Sargent, Director of Dmfwing and Manual T1'az'n1'fzg, Boston, Mass. HE purpose of education is to fit people for the world in QQ which they are to live, so that, to the fullest degree of 1 their capacity, they may understand it, be efficient forces in it, and enjoy it. An important part of human development has come through constructive work, through industries, through dealing at first hand with actual materials. To plan any useful piece of construction and carry it to completion so it is suited to its purpose and is a creditable piece of workmanship, requires clear thinking, and a concrete use of arithmetic, so exacting and necessary that mere book problems seem like phantoms in contrast. A childwhose arithmetic is occasionally put to the test of someshop problem where the results of mistakes are indicated, not by marks on paper, but by pieces of wood that will not fit, is aroused to a new sense of the reality of mathematics and its necessity in the world's work. He has a new incentive to accuracy. Q Manual training impresses upon students two important truths : I. That persistent effort is required to carry an idea to completion in material. i p ' 1 2. That in spite of discouragement, sustained effort, carefully planned, will usually bring success. The realization of these two things is an essential part of education and it is difficult to see how it can be developed without actual ficontact with materials. I I A child who thinks that hasty, thoughtless sawing and planning will produce a creditable box, soon learns his mistake. If he has a, skillful teacher the result will not be discouragement but a desire to do the sort of planning and shaping that will result in a satisfactory box. He approaches a new piece of construction in a soberer spirit, with a realization of the