The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1872-02-09
Primary School Rduoation.

"You would, then, if understand |
you," said l, shave the children
learn English, even in school, by |
reading good authors, and by writ |
ing down their thoughts the best
way they could, without regard to
rules2"
"Yes," said he, "under the guild
ance of teachers who, having been
taught to think and feel themselves,
know how to make the children feel
and think. How do you write your
self2 Do you square your elbows
and say, Now l will illustrate my
subject by a metaphor? or, Now 1
will be sublime according to the
rules of the much-to be discom-
mended Mr.. Quackenbos? Do you
keep that vast abortion, Mr.. Goold
Browns Grammar of English Gram
mars constantly by your side, and
search painfully through his HOP
pages to see whether by chance you
may not have violated one of his,
say, 10000 rules? 1 think you do
no such thing. You know well
enough that the two conditions of
good writing are, first, clear think
ing, and second. the command OF a
copious vocabulary, gained through
loving familiarity with good auth
ors. Now 1 would have that sort of
training begin in the primary
school, just as l would have the
children's training in science begin
there"
Training in science begin in the
primary schoolr' exclaimed l. "Is
it not enough to begin rhetoric
there? You surely would not bring
in all those formidable ologies be-
sides|
Indeed 1 would" said he; 600
logy, ornithology, entomology, ich-
thyology, paleontolOgy, and all the
rest of them. They contain the
very objects the Creator has pro
vided as the stimulants of childish
curiosity. and-what is not SO Of
ten observed-they are the main and
proper subjects on which to begin
the exercise of the child's faculty of
language. Which would you prefer
as a school composition-a boys de
scription of his last shooting excur-
sion, or a girls faint leminscence of
last Sundays sermon on the virtu-
BUSINESS of virtue? Are you going
to be taken in by pedantic Greek
names? What is entomology but
catching and examining bugs? And
can t baby catch bug, and won
der at its curious form and ways?
Aud does not all science grow out
of that very wonder2 What is the
youthful mind curious about-at
least till we deaden it with our pre-
pOsterous schools-but about these
very marvels of creation which we
do our best to spoil Tor him with our
learned jargon and our grammar
rules2 Why, every village school
should be an Agassiz museum in
miniature, and the children should be
continually writing learned memoirs
upon it's contents-learned to them
though not, perhaps, to the Ameri
can Academy OF Arts and Sciences. y
There is certainly something in
what you say" said :; "and l sup
pose, as you would have natural his
tory begun in the primary school,
you would have physical and, per
haps, chemical science begun there
too; for there seems to be no limit to
the number of studies you would in
troduce into this brave primary
school ofyours"
Indeed would" said he, "and in
one sense there is no limit, save the
possible subjects of human knowl-
edge. Children are even philoso-
pliers and metaphysicians in their
own childish fashion. and ask ques
tions sometimes which 1t puzzles
their elders to answer. l would,
therefore, include philosophy among
my primary-school studies. And
surely the unspoiled minds of chill
dren are of Imagination all compact
and a first and foremost primary
study should be poetry. Our
schools ought to be represented by
series Of concentric circles, which
should have the primary school for
centre, and then the little human
soul should take its first feeble steps
in all directions out into the vast do
mains Of knowledge, and no farther
in one direction than into every
other.-From English in School"
by William Atkinson, IN HGrpers
Magazine for February.
N,,a IIu1drad Yaara A10