Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1869-05-11
NJ i * ce l l "a II ".
WHAT SHALL CHILDREN STUDY =?

b1 DlS. d, VI. iiUl1LAND.
A professor in one of the prominent col
lcges of New York has lately remarked
that the peculiar defects Of the students
under his charge relate to the primary
branches Of education. He says that stu
dents who come well fitted for college in
studies observation-disclosures much at
home in the dead languages and the ma
thcmatics-cannot write good English,
and find it impossible to spell what they
write correctly. 1t is not month since
a letter was shown TO us from New
England college, written by the represcn-
tative man Of a literary society, which re-
vealed a lamentable lack Of spelling-book
And to come nearer hCmc--to the chill
drcn among whom we move .daiiy--we
know little girl, quick to learn, who has
attended the best schools that could be
procured for her all her life, girl who
can play Mozart's sonatas with good taste
and effect, who has been through Col.
burns First Lessons and understood them,
who has studied geography, history, and
grammar, yet who, in the writing of a
letter occupylnga pago Of -4v'~ r~r~-.
made fifteen blunlers in her orthograply.
Nov who is to blame for this state Of
things? ..,-.........
The matter is become serious one,
alike with parents and children, and it
will be well to inquire into it by the aid
of the lights of experience. There are
very few persons in the world who can
recall what they learned Of history, and
geography, and philosophy, and astrono-
my, before the age of thirteen, as any
thing Of positive value to them.
We would like to have every man and
woman who takes interest enough in this
article to read it, try to recall and survey
the actual practical benefits resulting from
the ea~ly pursuit of these studies. How
much do you now about them now, thai
YOU learned then? Do you remember Q
single valuable fact Of history, or geo
graphy, or philosophy, that you acquired
then? Arc you NOT painfully conscious
that the months and years which you de-
voted in your childh jod to the accquisl
ton of dry rules and facts, ofwhose value
and relations you knew nothing, wcr'
thrown away? DO you not feel that if
during those years, you had been taugh
to write the English language in legibl'
hand and in a presentable style of com
position, you would have gained some
thing that would be of incalculable valu'
now2 u... vs,.r. la =,
1t is notorious that though our peopl
in general are better educated than an.
other people on the earth, the rarest ac
complishments are those of good reading
and writing. Men and women are comln
every day into the active work Of lii
with an absolute hatred ofthe pen. The.
come out of the common schools, tn
seminarios and the colleges, with dccld
ed aversion to the writing of their mothe
tongue and a marked inability to do
credltably. Indeed, the cause OF this dl'
like of writing abidcs in the CONSCIOUSNESS
Of inability to write well. Men get int
the business routine of letter writing aite
a stupid, formal sort, but are all afloi
when asked to write petition to the Git
Council, or when they undertake to writ
letter to newspaper or even to a frlen'
Women upon whose education thousant
of dollars have been expended, write tl
merost baby-talk to their correspondent
and write us more frequently than the
are obliged to write. Nothing scares the
50 much as to obliged to write letter
either q man or women who writes we'll.
Now we believe that one Of the leadil
objects ofall our early training in school
should be the acquisition of the power