The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-06
NEWSPAPERS IN THE SCHOOLS.

|.|AA LukAlSh Wow Oh the RrOD0aLGlOu tn
III DO Away with Reading BOOks1
The London Saturday Review thus discusses
be proposition to substitute newspapers for
adiDg books in our public schools
Travellers generally may be divided into
20 Glasses, fashioned after the model of the
PIE and Industrious Apprentice. The indus
fious traveller in Europe does all the picture
Rlleries, cathedras, and ruins, whilst his lazy
pMpanion lounges through couple of streets.
p America the great object of the industrious
Faveller is to see, and of the idle traveller to
void seeing, as many schools as possible. 1t
the one defect in the general hospitality Of
americans that they cannot realize the exist
nee OF the latter class. Few OF them can be-
ieve that man may sincerely, and from the
ottom of his heart, object to being converted
or the time into a volunteer inspector.
veTy one who has ever visited America
has therefore been dragged through a
cries of schools has duly admired the viva
= Pity of the children, and has listened to the
Exclamation OF certain number OF poems and
prations. Such persons will be gratiaed by
Bearing that in the city Of Philadelphia they
Pill not in future be annoyed by the mangling
pf standard literature. The poor old frag-
ments of poets and orators will be allowed to
Fest in peace, and infantile organs will be
Rraotised on the viler material of the daily
hWspapers. The motive, however, Of the
Dge is not any relief to travellers. The
bog generation will, it seems, be made ac-
Tinted with Congressional debates, State
airs, wars and their causes, accidents,
Foods and fires, great public improvements,
etc., subjects upon which the youthful mind
rill feed much more proftably than upon
Psautiful orations or pathetic fancy writing"
suming this order to be genuine, there is
ieIreshing naGvetG about it which is charao
ferisio of the country. American ideas
nm a..nh .aaNA - l. 1ar
in some respects are certainly
more intelligent, than those of the British
middle classes; but they are expressed with
beautiful simplicity, unrestrained by any fear
|of cynical criticism. This passage puts in the
plainest form what a large class really thinks
ION both sides of the water. There is some
thing, indeed, rather more amazing than usual
to any one who has been a student of Phila-
delphia newspapers. If the infant mind is to
be Favored by the food on which it is to be fed,
/ as the canvas-back duck contracts the taste
4 Of the wild celery, the Philsdelphians of the
future will be remarkable generation. A
philosopher may be insuted by the pleasing
nickname of a book-in-breeahes; but news
paper in pants, to use the dialect of the coun-
try, is far less pleasant phenomenon. Anne
rican newspapers, outside of New York, no
| where rise above the level of the provincial
| press in England, and it is terrible
TO think of one of the numerous
Xeralds or Mereuries of our native
land taking flesh and walking abroad among
US. youth who had learnt politics by
spouting the editorials" of provincial
newspaper, whose imagination had been en-
riched by its poets corner, and whose miscel-
laneous information was derived from the
column in which one line informs us that a
melon has been raised in Pottsville, Pa, mea-
suring two feet in circumference, aud the next
that seventeen murders had been committed
In Texas in ten days, would have singularly
constituted mind. 1t is strange that any hu-
man being should propose to saturate the
youthful intellect with third-rate newspapers,
and to sink the fact that any greater masters
Of literary composition ever existed than those
who provide daily intelligence for the inhabi-
tants of Philadelphia. Most of us feel the
need of some sort of intellectual UNI
brella to ward off the pelting showers
Of information which descend upon us from
cloud of periodicals. We are anxious to
cultivate a profound ignorance of some of the
stores of useless knowledge which are thrust
upon our notice. But here 1t is proposed to
take the unofending youth of whole city,
and inoculate them from their earliest years
with taste for the consumption Of rubbish.
We can only hope that their digestions will
ultimately revolt at the insipid meal, and
that Philadelphian teachers will discover the
surprising fact that their newspapers are
dr6arl6r tnan even tno STANDARD WrlLerS Ol TIE
English language.
And yet we feel a certain hesitation in
speaking positively of the matter. If we
take the adult Englishman or American who
has received an average education, we might
fancy that he had been instructed pretty muot
on the plan described. The objection to plung
ing infants into premature newspaper read
ing would be founded not 30 much on the fac
that it would be bad preparation for thei
later studies, as that it would be only too
much like them. 1t would be startling sta
tstical return which should show truly the
number of persons whose literary zeal ever
takes them beyond the daily papers for theii
politics and the lighter part of magazines fol
their amusement. Reading, so far as tn,
British shopkeeper is concerned, is coming tt
be defnable as the art by which persons dis
cover what the Telegraph or Standard think
about the world in general; excellence of th
style will soon be measured by the approach
which 1t makes to the glowing beauties of tn
9elegaphS srticles and it will be one NOR
step, and not difficult one, to teach the infan
mouth to lisp in accents derived from tn
same source. On grand occasions boys vii
dsOaim the last fowery leader instead of
passage from Shakespeare or Macaulay. Thos
Door old standard authors, who, it is true
always received more respect than familiarity
have harder struggle than ever to keep thei
heads above the rubbish heaps of WORTHLESS
literature.
The tendency of which the Philadelphia
school-teachers have given grotesqus illus
ustion may suggest more serious reelection
II is an extreme corollary from the utilitaria
theory of some of our reformers, and bring
ont very neatly their special weakness. The
is no country where the advantage OF som