Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-04-28
For the journal.
WHAT SHALL We TEACH AND no u
SHALL WE TEACH?


If We see farmer preparing his potato field
in such a way as will insure the greatest guam
nounce him foolish man.
If we say to him ''sr you are wasting time
and money, your crop will be mainly tops
that will decay when frosts come > and he re-
plies, Il don't care so much about the pota-
toes, good show of tops is what I'm striving
for, so that when people pass my field in the
summer, seeing the luxuriant tops they will
pronounce it the best field in the country,
they can't see the potatoes then you know"
You would set such man down ass very
ignorant and foolish
think great deal of our popular school
system of education, especially in the higher
schools, is raising of tops for the show they
make through the summer, without much re-
gard for the real mental fruit. 1t is foolish to
raise potato tops for mere show, then starve
in Autumn and winter for want of the potato.
How much more foolish to cultivate mainly
the show of education, then starve in middle
n.
The committing to memory the words of text
books is not education. A youth may COM
nit to memory and repeat the words of TWEEN.
ty text books, and then know little or moth
his vast accumulations of memory he may be a
Ounce in reason and judgment. His book
education will be of little practic al use or val
ne; when he goes out to the business of life
he soon finds that his education of show has
given him nothing to work with.
The very street boy out-thinks and out-wits
him.
- The picked up education, the knowledge
of the world which the so called il,iterate man
has gained is of far more real value than all
his mere book acquisitions.
One of the educational questions of the
times is regarding the comparative impor-
lance OF the study of the languages and the
sciences in oar schools.
Az the languages are fashionably taught
for general rule, think the more you Gu, off
from the study OF the languages. and pu. On
TO the study Of the natural sciences the better
for the scholar, the better for the community
There are few exceptions. For the nine
out Of ten who study the dead languages in
our schools it il a matter of transient show.
Of the graduates who leave our high schools
and colleges when reaching riddle life, how
naany retain aa6 continue their Greek, Latin
and Frenehf No. one in a dozen. How many
a,.sA s.,t A 4
ahd discoveries Of the Agef Hardly one 10
dozen. Their school snattering of the sciences
did NOT awaken any real strong love for them,
30 they find no interest in them in later life.
taught, which the eleven out Of twelve forget
in five years after leaving school, "a blessed
forgetting IT 10 in the majority of cases, sup
pose that the same time were given towards
educating the pupil into love and knowl-
edge of Geography, Astronomy, Natural His
tory, and Physiology. Would they cease to
love them after leaving school, or to desire to
know more Of them? Far from it. They
would only love and desire to know, with
each added year 1t would be living, grow
ing education. TO the lover of science, the
whole world of rocks, vegetables and ami
mails, is a revelation of infinite life, a con-
slant SOUR Of intellectual delight and
strength. Moreover this scientific growth
and discipline ofthe mind, is just such as best
fits the man or woman fer the working life
Of business, home and society, Language will
sometim be taught as Science; then it
will take its place among the Natural Sciences
in our schools. Languages are not now pop