The Portland daily press., 1871-12-04
Terms $500 per onnuan. in adyance.

vi men anu women. The writing OF letters
and business papers should be thoroughly
taught, ana may De so taught to the large ma
jority of boys and girls by the time thew are
twelve or fourteen. Seldom is ANYTHING like
this now done As for technical grammar.
that should not be taken until twelve or four-
teen years. and 100 pages of an ordinary text
book are quite enough. So much for Ian
guage in the common school.
2-MATHEMATIcs.
AS for Arithmetic there should be Just
enough for ordinary business, and no more.
vi Geometry those problems should be
Taught, and those only, that lie at the basis
vi i INDUSTRIAL drawing, that have direct practi-
ur bearing upon mechanical pursuits and
gati0n should be taught, and everywhere the
mathematics of draught, of locomotion and
| road-building. i00''oA "AN
o-NDUsTRIAL DRAWING.
No one study in the common school sbould
receive M re attention than industrial drawing.
1t is of service to all, but touches moro az
rectly the carpenter, machinest millr;oht
bridge-builder, tinsmith, boiler-worker. cloth,
manufacturer ship-buflder, sail-maker, stone
cutter, masons, carvers, designers of all kinds
of furniture, of tableware, OF carpets, of
paper-hangings. No workman without a
knowledge of its fundamental principles can
follow the drawing which is placed in his
hands, but must be directed in all things.
Result: unskilled labor and low wages. And
this result is seen wherever you look in the
State of Maine. With properly educated
workmen ships, for example, could be built in
this State for quarter less than at present.
Now the common school, beginning its in
struction with the youngest pupils in free
drawing to train the hand and eye and to de-
velope the inventive faculty, then giving the
pupils OF the grammer school age one or two
years of practice with instruments in linear
work and photographic Projection, should, as
it can, teach all those fundamental principles
which underlie industrial drawing. Only
enough of special applications, in the form of
working drawings perhaps, need be given to
illustrate the varied bearings of the princi-
Piles, just as in teaching arithmetic illustra-
tive applications of its principles to different
kinds OF business are given, without an at
tempt to make specialists. Thus much of
industrial drawing should at once be put into
the common school; it is needed by boys and
girls alike, to the latter of whom it would, in
many ways, be of direct, practical service OPP
ening new avenues for employments. Upon this
the high school, which can hardly be ranked
as a common school, so few attend it, should
make considerable advance. Even if we
overlook its practical bearings, the discipline
and mental recreation which it would afford,
makes strong appeal for drawing in the
common school, to say nothing of the higher
artistic taste it would tend to devolope.
4-GEoRAPHY.
Instead of the 20OO0 or 81, 900 dry, isolated,
lifeless facts of the present textbooks in. ge-
oraphy, which we vainly attempt to cram in
to the heads of the boys and girls, 1000 or
1000 unforgetably learned, wouldmeet all Or
dinary requirmeuts in this direction. To
these add a few of the general laws of nature
and stop short, as you would before a preci-
pice. For all else depend upon the newspa-
per and books of travel
5-NATURAL SCIENCE.
Selfpreservation demands that Physiology,
so far as to make known to all the general
characteristics of the house they live in and
the general laws of life and health, should be
taught in the common school. The people of
Maine would live longer and do more, nor
would they pay, as now, to quack doctors and
for patent medicines enough to build ten
miles of railroad yearly. Then the common
school should teach the elements of Chemis-
try, with pl lctical applications to the prepar-
alton of food, to cheese and butter making, to
ventilation and heating of houseJ, to drainage
of land land nearly the whole State needs to
be underdrained), and to the general man
agement of soils. Chemistry, the most Won
derful of all the natural sciences, is also the
most practical. No one should be ignorant of
its general principles and applications. Bot
any which deals with the forms Of plants and
with the laws of their growth, that most de-
lightiul of all studies for children, and ex-
ceedingly seryiceable to all who cultivate
farm or garden, should also find an early
place in the common school curriculum.
Something of Animal Physiology, teaching
how to take care of animals and making
known their good points, that the farmer
may know whether he has a horse worth
hundred or thousand dollars, should he be
admitted to the common schools, yes, thrust
| into it. Instruction should also, on the prac-
| tical score, be given in what is termed natural
| philosophy.
| Now, with these natural sciences, the
| grievous mistake must not be made which
| has been made with arithmetic, grammer and
geography. There must be no attempt to
| teach them exhanstiyely. Only enough to
ground the pupils well in the elements should
be attempted. This much should be most
accurately and thoroughly taught, which cam
| not indeed be done in one or two terms, but
need not consume years. No study should
run through the whole common school life q
| hitherto arithmetic has. No more than this
| elementary instruction the natural sciences
will make the young men and women stick to
| the farm because it will put brain into their
work and make it more pleaasnt and prohta-
| BILE.
| g ECONOMICS - GOVERNMENT HISTORY.
The common school should give the older
pupils some intelligent instruction in econom-
les. The people should understand the laws
which regulate the production and dstribu-
tion of wealth, of which they are now almost
universally ignorant The common school
should also help the voter to a clear eompre-
heusion Of the government under which he
lives and votes. Thousands of voters In our
State will never read either of the constitu-
tions under which they live, If they do not
read them in school. Some, also, of the use
ful lessons of history, not merely its dry facts,
should find place in the common school.
| These should be learned rather through the
| general reading of which mention has been
| made, and not 0y memorizing textbook.
Nor should the historical studies Of the pupils
| be confined to the United States, as is usually
the case, for that makes them narrow, bigot-
cd, and they leave school believing there is
| nothing worthy of consideration beyond the
limits of their own country. Weneed TO have
some of the tall feathers plucked out of our
cap, and not more stuck in.
music.
| If that which affords the greatest amount
of happiness TO the greatest number is the
most useful thing, according TO Jeremy Ben
| than, then music must be ranked as exceed
| ingly useful, and should be taught in the
| common school. IL sweetens social life, and
| it sweetens school life, promoting and not re-
| tarding the progress of the pupils in their 9TH
er studies. As a mental discipline music,
when properly taught, is of the utmost value.
| Ninety and nine out of a hundred, instruction
beginning at an early age, can learn to sing.
Further, music can be taught not only in the
| city but in the country school,
S-MoRALs.
Last to be named, but not least, is moral
instruction, excluding dogmatc theology.
| Though required by the laws of the State, this
is now very generally neglected. A place how
| ever, should be found ON every programme
| for this instruction, which should be given,
somewhat by precept, but mainly by example
and illustration. The training of the moral
| sense can no more be left to chance than the
| training of the mathematical sense. There is
| a demand for men and women who dare not
| lie, dare not steal, dare not cheat, dare not be
| towards.
This is the course of common school study
| imperatively demanded by the times. Not an
| item should be subtracted,' but additions
made rather. Upon this let the high school
build, with the two faces it ought to have,
one turned towards the great body Of the peo-
pie and their common educational wants,
the other turned towards the college
and the special wants of those seek
ing higher education, whether lit
erary or technical. With this universal
education at the bottom, an education not of
the Dryasdust school, but full of life and
stimulus, the higher education will 60 higher
and spread wider. The love Of knowledge
strengthens with its acquisition. Our Col
leeeS have not enough students devoted to let
| .oS, h;la 0rOno boasts of less than 5O stt1dents