New-York tribune., 1867-08-05
WHAT SCHOOLS OUGHT TO RE.

struCtlOn oil school houses Wltn NleW to Phyo-
ical health, and we have also published reports
of the doings and sayings of the Educational
Conventions held in this State and else
where. We do not know that it is very
encouraging to have the subject of educa-
ton much talked of unless it can be talked
of wisely and freshly, unless new and better
methods of school-keeping can be proposed,
unless we can have more general and genuine
recognition of the mOurnful fact that knowledge
is not necessarily wisdom. Our American sys-
TEN of education is based upon the idea that
the acquisition of facts is of itself sufficient
for the purposes of life, and that their appll-
cation to individual culture and complete and
symmetrical growth is of secondary import
ance The consequence is that there are no more
dreary debates than those which are sometimes
held in Teachers Conventions. They are all
alike. They are as if all the trainers of learned
dogs and educated mules and monkeys in
the country should hold national meet
ing to discuss the relative values of punish
ment or pettng of blows or Of Establishments
There is n constant and not over coherent de-
bate about methods; about the petty resources
of discipline this teacher flames against fog
ging; that other believes there is nothing like
mar; and no who follows mourns over the uni
versal decay of orthography. The last-named
topic may bring on the subject of rival die
tionaries, and the warfare become universal
and acrimonious. When this happens it is
time for all men of sense to leave the as
sembly.
There are two kinds of education equally
necessary, and we needlessly separate them,
ignore the one and blindly adhere TO the other
The town or district votes money for the
erection of the house. and for the teachers
support. The teacher, having gathered together
the pupils, proceeds to inject, by the most
thoroughly mechanical means, little grammar,
geography, spelling arithmetic, with no refer
ence whatever to the philosophy of these
branches of knowledge. The doses are admin
istered, so TO speak. en- mGsse There is
Procrustean bed set up in every room, and the
stretching and looping of Gods image goes on
The teacher is a machine, the pupils are ma
chimes, the supervisors outside are machines,
and they all grind together with such harmony
"a Providence may permit. When this system
is exclusively followed, as we fear it is in a
majority of cases, we say frankly that fogging
il not only necessary but highly consistent. If
we do not know any finer auxiliary than a
good cowhide frequently and vigorously ap-
Piled. In q material system we must have
material rewards and punishments
Now nobody can be reader to allow that
education must be an affair partly of drill and
discipline than we are 1t must be also partly
matter of memory. But the multiplication
table, syntax. geography, are means and not
ends. The facts that two and two make four /;
that Vienna is the capital city of the Austrian
Empire; that a verb must agree with its nomi-
native case in number and person; that Virtue"
is spelled Virtue" are not, of themselves, of
the smallest earthly Importance. There have
been noble men and women who have lived
wisely and gone to honorable graves in utter
ignorance of these astonishing truths. Are
they not, then, to be taughtf OF course they
are, but only as the preliminaries or the accom-
paniments of something better and really more
useful. Not to know these facts renders
man capable only of the clumsiest intel
lectual processes, only of false induc-
ton and of mistaking truisms for
discoveries unless he be of a rarely gifted ma
ture like the exceptional men and women of
whom we have already spoken. But these are
the tools and not the work. In our school sys-
TEN they are everything-mea ends, tools,
work, commencement and conclusion. When
we say that with these boy is fit for his start
into active life, we mean only that he is tit for
the workshop, the c0unting-room, or for Con-
gress, with very little reference either to the
moral or Intellectual figure which he may cut
in those respective quarters. We mean only that
he is o proper candidate for the noble American
Order of Mediocrity. We have given him not
the smallest idea of the beauty of truth, OF the
value of knowledge for its own sake, of the
dignity of personal character independent OF
crowds, while we have not afforded to him 80
much as the least glimpse of those elevated
departments of human culture which have for
their purpose the discovery and analysis OF
beauty. We have not taught him to investi-
gate the past in history, nor the present
in the affairs Of society. We have not inspired
him with any benevolent and worthy sense OF
his relation to his fellow creatures. His honor
we have consigned to Gods mercy. His man
ners are as they may happen to be. His char
acter has been left to develop itself He joins
the eager, busy, self-deyoted throng, and lives
and dies little under or little over the ave-
rage. Add to this that under such a system
the standard must gradually become lower,
and the necessity Of some process by which
boys may be changed into men will be SUM-
ciently apparent.
Thus far We have generalized, but now we
come TO particulars. As the schools are, 80 will
the men and women be, and as they are, so
will be the national destiny. For there Is
nothing better defined in history, nothing more
easily marked In It's influences than national