New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-09-06
EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS.


prospects of those institutions, many facts
were stated respecting their methods of con-
Quoting education, which indicate extensive
innovations upon all previous systems, and
may prove the fOrerunners of entire change
in the management Of schools and colleges
throughout the country. It should be OBJ
served that the agricultural colleges are not
only of the branch which is designated, to
distinguish it from the usual classical course,
the New Education" and which embraces
sciences and modern languages; they are-es-
pecially at the West-of the most extreme pOr-
ton of that division. They regard the study
of the classics much as that of monastio lore
and scholastic metaphysics might be regarded.
In the new communities where they are stu
ated, 1t is the fashion to scott at all that is
old, and the "New Education Is popular be-
cause it Is new; all the methods of the old
institutions are viewed with doubt and dis
respect, and startling novelties are frequently
substituted for them, not, it must be admitted,
without success.
numerous particulars in which the New
Education" of the East differs from that of
the West. In both sections of country great
attention is paid by the colleges to analytical
chemistry and civil engineering; but while in
New-England the general direction of the
curriculum is chiefly toward chronological
studies aud least toward agriculture, just the
reverse is true Of the Western States; yet it
is obvious that there is more immediate need
Of the science of agriculture in cultivating the
wel-worn Eastern fields than in raising crops
on the comparatively fresh soil of the prairies
1t is noticeable that even the chronological
studies of the West include more of matters
relating to pioneer life than those Of the
East the former especially exercising the
students in actual ditching and draining, and
the construction of fences, farm buildings,
and dwellings; the latter in the arts of the
workshop rather than of the field. In
general, there are many poor students who
would be unable to obtain education were they
not paid, at least in part, for labor; but the
problem of making such labor sufficiently
profitable to the colleges to keep them from
running behindhand in finances, has not been
solved in more than one or two instances, ii
at all. In the Eastern States the preparatory
schools are insufficient in training pupils for
the colleges, and between the State institutions
and chronological schools not fostered by State
aid there is direct and somewhat embarrass-
ing competition; but in the Western States the
common and high schools Of the State are per-
fectly adequate in preparing for the universe
ties and, in Minnesota at least, there is no
rlvi Try whatever between private educational
institutions and those of the State.
1t is therefore at tho West that the most
remarkable results have thus far been reached.
At the East it is yet believed that students
time is too much crowded for careful attention
to agriculture, notwithstanding the success Of
the Amherst "Agges" at the boat race, of
which the agricultural professors very
proud, as the winning crew were the best
scholars in their class, and were also among
the hardest workers of the labor students.
But at the West it is found that the students
who do the most manual labor invariably ac-
cOmplsh the most study, and the best work.
men are the best scholars. This is probably
in part because the work at the West Is not
made compulsory, and the single exception to
success with labor, In Oberlin, Ohio, may have
relation to this feature. Where the students
are paid extra for their labor, as in Wisconsin,
system of docking" the pay where the
work was not assiduOusly performed, had the
effect of greatly increasing its efficiency.
But the indirect effects are as remarkable as
those which lie on the surface. The students
at Champaign, Illinois, ARE not only not
ASHAMED of labor" says Prof Gregory" they
Glove it.n They are brought by it into greater
intimacy with their teachers, resulting in
better appreciation of the wants of the student,
less trouble as to his discipline, extraordinary
efforts on his part, and personal improve
ment that Is manifest in the high moral char
acter of the graduates All this has a correla-
tive effect also upon the teachers, who go with
the students into the field and the workshop and
take hold themselves: an excellent effect, phys
ical as we'll as moral. DR.. WEIGH of Iowa de-
clares that it benefits him far more than the
gymnasium Prof Miles of Michigan tells of the
delight which he and his boys experienced on
completing a school building, every part of
which was the work of their own hands. DR..
Gregory asks how could he help joyful SYM
patty when his students, having constructed
4O-horse- power am-engnc, asked him to sit
down with his back to it and say, if he could,
when it wos in action and when not, its move
| ments were 80 noiseless.
There are young women in large numbers
in those Western colleges, and in one OF them
at least there is but one staircase to the
building and no more division made in the
domestic arrangements than in any large
family. From each college that reports on
this subject the testimony is that the presence
of the young women has an excellent effect
upon the young men, making them more
| mannerly, tractable, and ambitious. Dr.
| WEIGH, at whose institution in Ames, Iowa,
there are 80 young women, declares that they
or 10 Cd in, tha