Weekly Trinity journal. [volume] (Weaverville, Calif.) 1857-1972, 1864-08-06

PRACTICAL lNsTRUCTIoY.-ln that most admir-
able report Of Agassiz in relation to the museum
of comparative zoology, the great naturalist
gives interesting sketch of his method for
training young men to the pursuit of natural
history. He puts them at work among the speci-
mems themselves, studying facts, tracing anaIo-
gies, developing differences and mastering prin-
ciples for says he, d" l have satisfied myself
long ago that the general and most elementary
principles of one science better understood
when illustrated from nature than when explain
ed in mere abstract manner" To US there is
q world of wisdom in that remark.
The divorce between text book instruction
and particular knowledge is one of the great
curses OF American education. We know ac-
compllshed dlylneS who cannot tell the differ
ence between a chestnut and an oak. We have
seen more than one excellent Greek scholar who
incapable of distinguishing between a field
of growing wheat and one of rye. A large por-
ton Of our college graduates ready to con-
found iron pyrites with specimens of gold ore
and we have known numbers who have made
capital recitation in chemistry during their col
legiate course, who never really learned
now in entire practical ignorance of the appear
ancc, characteristics and uses of the simplest
chemicals We have seen more than one young
who, after twelve years good schooling.
and under accomplished teachers at that could
not draw an ordinary note of hand or calculate
simple sum at interest.
1t is this ignorance of every day things which
makes our scholars the sport of your rough
practical men, They get plundered in the
ket and cheated in the store. They taken
advantage of their grocer, and imposed upon by
their butcher. Conscious of their ignorance of
what many a wide-a-wake eight year old is ia
miar WITH they shrink from coming in contact
with men in business ways, and go through life
one-sided. We do not believe it would hurt
statesman to know how to sew on q button or
handle hammer. We are sure that divine
will be worse for being familiar with the secrets
of the kitchen and the pantry and we are quite
certain it does not hurt editor to be a judge
of -four or of good beef. Ours is a practical
people, and we need more thorough everyday
education of our young men and young women.
The highest society is the most thoroughly self
helping. 1t is comparatively with the highest
culture to be able to wait ones self. For
ourselves, would soon be handed over to
the executioner as be logged by valet But
in order to free men from imposition and fit them
for everyday duties they must be trained to them
in their youth. A child will learn by obserya-
ton and by touch thousand things in his early
years without effort, which it would take weeks
of hard labor to secure at a later period. We
coop our children TO much in school-rooms.-
They waste too many precious hours tasks
that, dwadling over them they do, do the
mind more harm than good They should be
surrounded more with objects and less by text
books taught sizes, forms, qualities, colors,
tual contact rather than hard labor to acquire
abstract descriptions. We hope some day to see
a radical reform in the methods of teaching.
and to see children practically indicted into the
secrets of nature, and acquiring by actual obser-
walton and experiment an amount of valuable
knowledge which no mere study of textbooks
can possibly bestow.- Washington Chronicle.