The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1868-09-18
ADMISSION TO HIGH SCHOOLS.


sets Teacher is an article byrA. B. Hey
wood, Principal to the Franklin School,
in Lowell, which contains valuable ide-I
as on this important subject. AIr. H.
writes from long experience, and his
views coincide with our own. In this
State, we are glad to believe, attention
is being more and more drawn 10 our
higher grades of schools, and the peo-
pie are anxious to adopt the soundest
and most practical views. Parents do
not want the time of their children
wasted but rather that it be passed to
the best advantage. With large class
of our citizens it is not possible to allow
to their children great amount Of
schooling" as it is commonly called !;
the farm. the house, and workshop, and
the family necessities, make imperious
demands: and, consequently, all of us
are DESTROYS to secure the best methods.
In towns where there are high schools
the views here presented will command
attention. We can quote but a few SEN
fences from the article referred to-:
Many boy who stood number one
in grammar and arithmetic, where rea-
son and deep thought are required, is
turned away from the high school be-
cause he has poor memory and fails in
history, geography and spelling; while
a frivolous girl whose memory serves
her III the last named studies, but who
ranks zero or next to zero in the first,
goes laughing into and laughing out Of
the High school, without approaching
or appropriating its advantages for a
single moment. There is something
radically wrong in q system which ex-
cludes the thinkers and admits the MEM
oriZers of a class. School committees
make as grave mistake here as they do
in selecting their teachers from those
who have succeeded in answering a
certain number of printed questions in
a given time. Nothing can be more alb
surd than to suppose aperson will make
Il good teacher because he is good
scholar. Scholarship is one and only
one of the many requisites to success in
teaching. So to determine who shall
enter the high school solely by the test
OF printed questions, is almost sure to
exclude some of the best minds. Many
Il boy of fine natural talants does not
wake up till long after ordinary boys
are out of the high school.
Great minds mature slowly. 1t is not
unusual to find that the leading men of
our day, or any other day, were very
unprOmising boys. Daniel Webster,
the acknowledged statesman of America
was VIGOROUSLY dull when boy, poor
scholar in college, and graduated with
out honor. Henry Ward Beecher, UNI
disputably the most popular divine in
this country, was fourth rate scholar
when young. Robert Rantoul stood
near the foot of his class in college. Sir
Walter Scott was called dullard when
a boy. Patrick Henry, whose oratory
stirred the hearts of the f. +. VS., was
too stupid when boy to keep on the
shady side of the tree under which he
would lie like an unthinking brute, the
livelOng day. How often are we startled
to find that the dolt whom we pitied, if
we did not deride, in our school days,
is now the astute lawyer, the profound
writer, or the princely merchant; leay-
ing US, once his superiors, wondering
"Upon what meats doth this our Cesar feed,
That he has grown so great
Let some of the so-called stupid boys
of our grammar schools, whose mental
| processes are yet too slow to solve and
write out in a given time the tedious
| problems of printed examination, but
whose love of study, patient investiga-
| ton, and thorough comprehension of
an idea when once mastered entitie
| them to consideration; let such boys. /
say, be promoted to our High Schools
| for their merits as close students rather
than as good scholars, for what they
can be rather than what they are; and
at the end of four years they will come
out bright and shining lights, dazzling
with steady blaze the eyes of the f1ashy,
| fippant candidates who sailed in on the
ttop wave of success, but whose intellec-
tual calibre is measured by one word
memory. 1t is i'll such cases as these,
some Of which must have come under
the observation of every experienced
grammar master, that the popular meth
Cd of admission discriminates unjustly.
Some Plan should be devised to meet
these exigencies. l do not propose to
suggest one, and for the best of reasons
do not know one. In short, l consider
the problem difficult of solution. 1t is
easier to reach a correct diagnosis in
disease than to find its specific. 1 have
merely stated the case hoping the teach
ers of Massachusetts will search dill
gently until remedy is discovered. Il
they cannot find it, the malady may as
well be set down as incurable.