At the beginning of the fourth year a printing-press was provided; but each teacher furnished her own type, set it, and did the printing for her class. During this year, after four months of the new work, one division of Miss MacChesney's class "completed the grade work in reading in three months, a thing never before done at Englewood." Concerning this year Miss MacChesney says further; "From the experience which this year has brought me, I am thoroughly convinced that, could the average child have from the first the results of his own observations put in printed form, and enough of phonics to enable him to find out new words, the reader could be withheld until the latter part of the year, when it would be read with relish, and as a book ought to be read. . . . The power gained by the children to observe closely, to tell clearly and concisely what they have observed, and the power of logical, connected thinking is not confined to their science and reading, but is felt in all the work of the schoolroom. . . . In looking back over the time since we began working out this theory, I see a constant increase in the power of the classes that have been led along this path."
In regard to the influence of this work upon herself, Miss MacChesney, during the third year, wrote me, "At night I can hardly wait the morning, so eager am I to begin another day, and see how the children will go through the work planned for that day." Here she reaches the true work of the teacher—to watch and direct the growth of the children's minds. From letters received from Miss MacChesney during 1889-90 I cull the following: "I started out to try what seemed a theory of doubtful utility to public-school children, and found all my work and my life enlarged and beautified. . . . I am certainly happier than I have ever before been in teaching, and I know I am doing more for the children intrusted to my care. . . . Mr. Bright, in order to speak with assurance about these matters, visited fifteen city teachers; and in no case did he find the attention of teachers or children directed to anything but the symbol, and in no case were the children further advanced than ours where thought and symbol go hand in hand. . . . I did not meet with any opposition in the work. The only requirement that I must meet was the grade work
ness the scenes in ten thousand slaughter-houses, and themselves be the victims of the loathsome indifference to cruelty there practiced—shall this exist and pass uncondemned, because its results are pleasant to the appetite of the body, and the cry of cruelty be raised when a few hundred grasshoppers are killed for purposes of study? Is the body of more value than the mind, and nourishment more desirable than knowledge? So long as slaughterhouses exist, so long will it seem desirable to teach children reverence for animal life by minute personal study of the wonder and beauty of organ and function in the lower forms. When slaughter-houses have been done away with forever, the human mind will find a better way to teach zoology. Let the cry of cruelty go forth, but not from those whose own flesh is built up from the flesh of their brute brethren.
