Of course more than half the article is about the local pottery industry. But still, Papa Charles, the East Liverpool high school principal this year, made his mark at the teachers conference.
Teachers' Institute---Crockery Business---Matters in General.
Special Correspondence of Pittsburgh Commercial.
East Liverpool, O. February 20, 1875.
The Eastern Ohio Teachers' Institute met in the public school hall here yesterday, and will close at noon to-day. Yesterday afternoon, Van B. Baker, principal of the schools here, read an interesting paper on "Pedagogues," which elicited considerable discussion. The question, "How often should classes be promoted?" was discussed by V. B. Baker, C. F. Stokey, M. B. Sloan, Colonel Hill and others.
The question of "Compulsory Education" was discussed by V. B. Baker, M. B. Sloan and C. F. Stokey on the affirmative, and T. Jeff. Duncan, of Pittsburgh, on the negative.
The exercises this morning were, a class drill on map drawing by Miss Phemia Huston; "Transit of Venus," by Professor C. F. Stokey, and an essay by Miss Carrie Brockman, on "The Old and the New." The school here is quite large, employing eleven teachers and a principal or superintendent, and seems to be in excellent working order.
The chief business of the town, which contains about three thousand inhabitants, is the manufacturing of pottery and queensware. There are twenty-one manufactories, four of which make white ware, the remainder yellow and Rockingham ware. We visited one of each kind, being those of C. C. Thompson & Co.'s, Rockingham and yellow queensware manufactory; and the "Ohio Valley Pottery," owned by Messrs Laughlin Brothers, manufacturers of white ware, or "iron-stone china." C. C. Thompson & Co.'s works have been in operation about five years, and are the largest in the place. They sell the goods principally in the Eastern States, and have all the orders they can fill. The material for their works and all the others which make yellow ware, is obtained from the hills around the place. Their ware is of an excellent quality.
Messrs. Laughlin Brothers' works have been in operation only a short time, but long enough to develop the fact that they can equal, if not excel, the same kind of ware made in England. Their chief line of goods consists of "dinner sets," "tea sets," "toilet sets," and a complete line of hotel ware, double thick. Samples of ware from England were shown us, and in each case, the same kind of ware made by them excelled in whiteness, beauty and finish. They obtain their material from Glen Island, Mo., Frumet., Mo., Vineland, Mo., Golconda, Ind., Brandywine Summit, Pa., and from the coast of Maine. Their works are very fine, being, in many respects, superior to any in this country. S.
The Eastern Ohio Teachers' Institute met in the public school hall here yesterday, and will close at noon to-day. February 19-20 was a Friday and Saturday. I wonder if the area was utilizing a school break for George Washington's Birthday.
3. "Transit of Venus," by Professor C. F. Stokey I foolishly wondered if Papa Charles was reciting a poem, but Wikipedia told me there was a transit of Venus on 9 December 1874 - less than three months before this conference - and explained: A transit of Venus takes place when Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth (or any other superior planet), becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus is visible as a small black circle moving across the face of the Sun. Transits of Venus reoccur periodically. A pair of transits takes place eight years apart in December (Gregorian calendar) followed by a gap of 121.5 years, before another pair occurs eight years apart in June, followed by another gap, of 105.5 years. I don't think Papa Charles became a government weather observer until about five years later, but this would be the sort of thing that led him to that position.
4. Papa Charles revisited East Liverpool nearly thirty years later: