The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1867-05-17
Our schools.

TOWNSEND, may Ith 1901.
Mr.. EDITOR After two weeks of mental
leisure, l again take the pen to consider
the merits of the suggestion presented in
my last letter. In that, submitted to the
consideration of the officers and patrons of
schools in the rural districts, the propriety
Of uniting the summer and winter terms in
to one, to commence about the 1st of Sep
tember and continue until the year school
ing is completed (seven or more months.
Now purpose to state come reasons why
this would be an Improvement upon the
usual custom.
The public is burdened with an enormous
tax, for the purpose of maintaining a school
system which shall grant TO every youth,
rich or poor high or low, equal advantages
for obtaining an education. We boast of our
generosity, our philanthropy, and our free
schools. We invite the orphan and the beg
gar, the friend and the foreigner to meet us
upon one common level and travel with us
the one royal road to eminence. We may
well be proud of an institution which COM
bines the elements which shall lift from the
depths of ignorance benighted mankind,
that shall call the little reprobate from the
dens of vice, and points him TO higher and
nobler destiny, that shall say to the unfor-
tunate and penniless you shall not be neg
lected. We may, and ought 10 expect
much from such system, and if We do not
it will stand as a reproach sgaipst those
who administer the laws. The law con-
templates more, much more, than We realize.
It's most euplantic acquisitions are partially
met, while nearly all of the spirit is most
woefully neglected. But glance at the re-
cords viii convince one, that the harvest so
earnestly desired is but partial yielJ, and
mixed with tares.
Three fourths Of the masses of the State,
derive all their education in the district
schools, and We have to take but an extern
ded survey of the general intelligence of that
portion Of society, to convince Us that there
are poor workmen trying TO run the machine,
or they are Indifferent with regard 10 the
quality of the manufactured article. A re-
Prospective view of the past and a moment
of reflection, will unfold map upon which
is printed, at every parallel and every meri-
dian line, FAILURE. We have long, long
list of experiments cancelled by failures.
School directors experiment by procuring
strangers to take charge of their schools,
teachers experiment upon school govern
ment, scholars experiment upon the patience
of the teacher, and the three combined, in
nine cases out of ten, work out a complete,
thoroughly demonstrated. failure. And how
often is this repeated, not less than twice
and often three times, 10 bring about seven
months of school. One comes with his sys-
TEN of discipline, and calls upon your chill
dren to observe it. In the course of three
months they become conversant with his
particular routine and are ready to advance
in study, then old custom steps in supersedes
him, and another programme radically diff
erent perhaps, is inaugurated, to meet the
same end, and thus from month to month
and year after year the children in the rural
district, are made the subject of successive
experiment, to terminate, only when they
leave school. They must submit submis-
sively TO the numberless whims and incon-
sistencies which fill the hollow heads of
many a pretending teacher and learn
at the close of their eventful career in COM
mon schools, but conglomeration without
nucleus, a big nothing? 1t is a fact that no
teacher will deny, that the last month of
three months term is worth more than the
first two, and why? simply because the first
is an experiment which takes the second two
to settle. If then. it requires three months
to realize good school of two months, would
it not be reasonable, would it not be policy |
to lengthen the terms7 If the last is the |
better part, would it rot be wise to make
more last and consequently have less first?
am inclined to think "my policy" if ad-.
opted and successfully managed, would mi
tigate in great measure the ineonFeniences
we now experience. Graded schools have
many advantages which it seems to me,
might be extended to the country schools
with but little trouble, and it is in your hands,
farmers, to say whether your hard earned