BLACKS SCHOOL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 85, 30 September 1870, Page 2

BLACKS SCHOOL.

(To the Editor of the Moujtt Ida Chbojuclb.} 1 Sib, —The Hev. lather Emmanuel Hoyer, in a recent letter to the ' Dunstan Times,' records the results of a visit he lately paid to. Blacks school, and in that letter he says, that when the present teacher took charge of the school there was only one pupil studying geography. I was in active charge of the school in June of this year. During my teaching career at Blacks I' had the pleasure of teaching geography to the following children : —John liyan, John Sloan, and Mary Anne Dundass. You need not, sir, have any delicacy of publishing these names —the parents will be pleased to acquaint the public of this fact. Father Koyer says that " grammar was not taught at all" prior to Mr. Dixon, the new master, possession. Let facts speak for themselves : During my twenty-one months sojourn on Blacks the following pupils were taught grammar : —John Uyan, Francis Flynn, John Sloan, Mary Anne* Dundass, and just before I left a junior class could distinguish nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Why, jfir, three months after my ar-. rival at Blacks, Mr. Burke, the chairman, visited the school and found about ten children searching for nouns arid verbs in their lesson books ; but did not drtiam of calling this pursuit '• grammar." But grammar proper, and essay writing, was taught from the first to the last day of my masterliood to the children named. It also pained —pained me much and deeply —to see the statement in the letter referred ; to that, when Mr. D. arrived, " only I three children were studving arith- J metic. ' Out of a dozen children,

cepting about : four, every child in the school was studying arithmetic under me. ! Indeed, the whole of Eather Hoyer's letter has given me great pain. people know better than the people of Blocks what immense pains I took to mould,, th-e school; and. when it is remembered that I was its first teacher, and that Mr. D. is ndw reaping the reward of my labor, ;;I'think you will say that I deserve something better bywayof reward than ingratitude. ~ Mr. D. has been oniy six weeks itf office;- and 'is it probable that the present high efficiency of the pupils is the result of only six weeks' work? JSo, sir; the present excellent spelling, reading, &c., of the classes is the effect of my hard twenty-one months' work—a work to which I devoted heart and; mind—-J might almost say soul —with what result unbiassed parents in Blacks now I only too plainly see. But when I "there not oaie pen wrote a letter to the paper praising me. * lam a professional elocutionist, and ■at orthography, composition, elementary arithmetic, and elocution I will yield to none. This is-egotism, but I have Grovernmental as well as othier testimonials to support my statements; and, sir, no one knows better than you, as ,a journalist; that egotism is son% *• times painfully necessary when, either by inference or by implication, an attempt is made to take away the character of a man who depends upon his brains for his bread. At the same time, I wish to state that I thiiik that Eather Boyer has been the unconscious vehicle, not the positive believer, of the misstatements referred to. He is a thorough Christian and gentleman, and f I know would be the last to perpetrate an act of injustice. I ; now possess three testimonials from Blacks, and before I left a public meeting was held which resolved that I possessed the confidence of the people of Blacks. Owing to what now seems to me false modesty, I never forwarded you a re-

port of the meeting in question, and never asked anyone to do so. . My f cfaief object during my career on Blacks was to be a teacher---and a teacher only <—giving' neither time nor thought to any other subject whatever: hence my success there—-a success acknowledged .by the Sub-Inspector in the most emphatic* terms, when he inspected the

school on the 10th October, 1869. Eor * confirmation of what I say I refer to Mr. Kobt By an, to Mr. W. U. Burke, and to Mr. James Graham, gentlemen who are all officially connected with Blacks school.

Let us suppose tlbafc Mr. Pixon remains in Blacks two years, and advances. the pupils from where I left them to a still higher grade—what would he say if he heard the result of all his ability attributed to his successor ? " Mixing with the people "of Blacks will soon show any impartial witness who is the real author of the * present creditable condition of Blacks school. At the same time, Mr. Dixon may be, and probably is, an excellent teacher, but the effects of his excellence will not be visible until the lapse of at least twelve months. Any excellent results visible now at Blacks cannot surely be the fruit of only six Weeks tuition. There is an old saying about M a iiew broom," &c.—l am, &c:, M. W. Stack. i Dunedin, Sept. 5J1,1870. ; ,