Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-12-18
NO. 29s.
#isfellaaeums.
WHAT THE COMMON SCHOOL SHOULD
TEACH.
BY C. B. STETSON.

|
in their after life. The usefulness Of the things
taught should be beyond reasonable question.
| Of two useful things the preference should
always be given to the MOI directly useful,
and useful to the larger number. Common
wants and common sense should determine the
course of study for common schools.
To-day our common-school course Of study
is, in nearly all particulars. just what it was
fifty -one years ago, when the District Of
Maine became State. There is an attempt,
indeed, to teach more of the same things, an
attempt not always successful. That is about
the whole difference between the present
course Of study and the course of fifty years
ago.
One word, literary, describes the present
course of study. 1t has no direct industrial
bearing. Were an inhabitant of another
planet to visit our public schools, noting care
fully the education there given, he would
never guess, from anything he heard or saw
in the school-room, that it was expected any
OF the pupils, when they grew to be men and
women, would labor with their hands He
would never guess that an acre of land was
cultivated, or. pound of butter or cheese
made, or loaf Of bread baked, or q ship or
steam engine built, or yard of cloth woven
| in the State of Maine. Its common school
recognizes not one of the leading industries
to which the great majority Of our boys and
girls must give both mind and muscle in their
after life. Think you that is the way to
educate the boys and girls in Maine3
Yet this literary education of the common
school, sadly imperfect though it be, has been
worth to the people many times more than it
cost. Had the course Of study, however,
been made what it might and should have
been made, when the State was organized,
not all literary. but half industrial, there is
good reason for believing that the population
and wealth of the State would exceed. the
former by hundreds of thousands, the latter
by hundreds of millions, the figures of to-day.
Education and public welfare are mother and
child. Whatever is put into the education of
the children and youth comes out in the
State. So all history affirms.
Looking in this light, at the census returns
of our own State for 1860 and 1870, what an
unpleasant educational story they tell Es-
pecially should the returns Of 1870 make eyerv
public man in the State of Maine, yes, every
private citizen blush with shame. Consider
the great national advantage which were ours
at the organization of the State fifty-one years
ago, consider the great natural advantages
which are manifestly ours to-day, consider
what industrial education has done for
some other countries during the life of our
State, and then consider the little progress
we have made during the last twenty-five
years, the very period when we ought to have
advanced the most rapidly. By the fruit of
fifty years the common schools of our State
can now be judged. According to that judg-
ment the fruit is not satisfactory-good indeed
but not good enough. 1t is clear we might
have had vastly more for our money; it is
equally clear more money might have been
profitably expended.
But what of the future? For it is with the
future of the present generation Of boys and
o hat bp Of m. do iop
cerned. Whatever education that future ur-
gently demands, the common school should
give and without stint. Education is not for
the dead or dying, nor yet for those just be.
ginning to live, but for men and women who
have the affairs of the world in their charge.
Forecasting the future, as every intelligent
educator must, since he works for the future,
one sees plainly that vastly better education
is needed by the present generation of boys
and girls than was needed by the boys and
girls of fifty years ago; and one sees plainly
a daily growing need that this education
should be half industrial. Sadly defective as
was the peoples education of fifty years ago,
much more defective is the peoples education
of to-day.
Why? Because the times have radically
changed, and the common school has not
changed with them. Living in Maine to-day
is quite different thing from what it was if
ty years ago. This difference doth increase
constantly. Muscle counts for much less and
brain for much more than it did. Few, in
deed, realize how great an economical revolu-
ton has been wrought among us within the
last half century, making it harder and hsr-
der for the ignorant, unskilled workman to
compete in the labor market.
Not more than every tenth farm is as pro-
ductive as il was fifty or thirty years age,
! thanks to the unskilled agriculture of our
fathers and ourselves. The coming genera
ton of farmers in this State will succeed to a
lean inheritance, which only knowledge and
muscle, not muscle alone. can and must be
made to blossom and bear better even than
it did hen the land was new to cultivation.
A farm in Maine is no longer a place for
fool Fools must migrate to more fertile re-
gions or starye. Yet the soil is good enough,
! If only the farmers had such an education as
the common school can and should give. Be-
cause Of ignorance much of the most produce
tive land within the settled limits has never
been cultivated. With the restoration of the
worno land by fertlizing it with brains,
that too is to be brought into service.
Again our mechanical industries, which
| fifty or thirty years ago, were so few aud SO
rude have become exceedingly varied in
character, and demand, for their most sue.
cessful prosecution, high degree of intelli-
gence and skill on the part of the workmen.
Statistics show that in the prosecution of
these industries skilled labor is worth two and
three fold more than ignorant labor, OF Drawn
without brain. This demand for skilled me-
chanical labor in the State of Maine must in
crease for years to come. If the common
school fails to do its duty in the future as it
fails now, this demand will never be met,
and the workmen, deing poor work, must put
up with poor wages. 1t is not enough, as
Cardinal Wiseman has so clearly shown, that
there be intelligent supervision, that the ar
tist and artizan work under the same roof;
they must be united in the same person. 1t
lies almost wholly with the common school to
effect this union.
Again, the competition which labor of all
kinds in the State of Maine must meet to-day
is sharper, by a vast deal, than was the COM
petition Of fifty or thirty years ago. Then
the competition was local; now it is CONT
mental and often earth-wide. The railroad,
the steamboat and telegraph have made
neighbors of the whole world. How few as