A new article has been added at Newspaper Abstracts > United States > Pennsylvania > Tioga http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=1700 Direct link to article: http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=52304 Submitted by: Barbara Article Title: The Wellsboro Agitator Article Date: May 13 1884 Article Description: The School Directors' Convention Article Text: The School Directors' Convention. The Slim Attendance - Superintendent Cass Re-elected. The Triennial Convention of School Directors for the election of a County Superintendent was held at the Court-house in the borough last Tuesday afternoon. As it was generally understood that there was but one candidate for the position to be filled, the attendance of Directors was very light, only about one-fourth of the total number being present. The Convention was called to order in the court-room at 2:15 by County Superintendent Cass, and C. C. Ward, of Elkland, was elected chairman. F. E. Smith, of Tioga, and J. D. Campball, of Nelson, were chosen secretaries. The Chairman then asked for nominations for County Superintendent, and the incumbent of the office, M. F. Cass, of Nelson, was named. There being no other nomination, a motion was made that Mr. Cass be elected by acclamation; but the Chairman said he thought the better course would be to call the roll, so that each Director present might name the person for whom he voted. Secretary Smith then proceeded to call the roll of Directors for the several districts, and 68 Directors from 29 of the 41 districts of the county responded to their names, each of them voting for Mr. Cass. The chairman thereupon announced that Mr. Cass had been duly elected County Superintendent for the next three years. Mr. Cass then came forward and thanked the members of the Convention for the confidence and faith they had shown in him. Referring to the slim attendance, he said that many Directors had written him that as there was no opposition they would not come unless they were needed an were sent for. He said he had done his best for the past three years, and he could only promise to do that for the time to come. So far as the schools are concerned, he thought some advancement had been made, and some Directors has taken hold of the work with renewed zeal. The local institutes had done great good wherever held, and he hoped that the work might go on. He wished every Board would have at least one member visit the schools in company with the Superintendent. It was impossible for the Superintendent to hunt up the Directors in the townships, but it would be better if some one of them would go to the schools with him. As it is now, he would sometimes go into a school and find it impossible ! to tell whether things had been fixed up for his visit or not. When he found a teacher engaged in crochet-work instead of teaching, he knew his visit was not expected; but sometimes he suspected that it was known in advance that he was coming. There was another thing to which he wished to call the attention of the Directors and that was the lack of proper apparatus. Some schools have no blackboard and many have not enough. Some have a little 2 by 4 board and some school-rooms haven't any. If he was teaching school he should have to have more blackboards. The decoration of the school-rooms is another thing that does great good and creates a great interest in the school. One secret of having a successful school lies in making the room a pleasant place. This has a greater effect than you may imagine. It stimulates the boys and girls, gives them more respect for the school and for themselves and inclines them to behave better and to get better lessons. The division of the school year into terms, boarding the teachers around, and the frequent changes of teachers are among the drawbacks of the schools. The Directors should also look after the proper lighting of the rooms. Many children are being made near-sighted by badly lighted school-rooms. The windows should be put behind the scholars and not in front of them as many now are and the blackboards should be placed in front of the children. The Directors should also make the teachers sign contracts and see that they live up to them. Now many teachers are engaged without a written contract, and they teach or not just as they please. He went to visit one school and found the teacher had gone off to attend a circus, and the school was shut up. The teacher should be made to forfeit a dollar when a day was dropped, unless he had an excellent excuse. The Directors should also see that the school is taught six hours each day. He was sorry the law did not have it taught longer. He thought Americans were getting altogether too lazy. In Germany the children go to school ten hours a day for six days in the week and all the year round. He hoped the time would come when we might have continuous terms of school. The law, in fact, knows nothing of two terms, and in come counties the term is now continuous. September, October and November are excellent months for school, and in our climate any child can go to school in those months and generally in December. But the people themselves need educating in this regard; in some districts they insist on a summer and a winter school. A Director inquired how many holidays a teacher is allowed by law. The Superintendent replied that there were too many legal holidays - seven in all. The teacher can also get pay for the time spent in attending the County Institute if the school is then in session. It is not so with the local institute; that is not established by law, but in many cases the local institute is worth more to the district than the school. The Directors can, however, make the teacher contract to teach a certain number of days exclusive of the holidays, and then he will have to teach for the number of days stipulated. The whole matter thus rests in the hands of the Directors. But the holidays must be paid for unless they are excepted in the contact. A Director inquired what per cent of school-grounds the Superintendent found well kept. Mr. Cass replied probably five per cent. The Director remarked that he thought enough attention was not paid to this matter by the districts. He thought every district should provide strong fences and shade trees for the grounds, and that the school-houses should be fixed up better than most of them now are. The Convention then adjourned, having been in session about three-quarters of an hour. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ PA-Old-News ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NewspaperAbstracts.com - Finding our ancestors in the news! TM http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com