Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1872-02-16
Primary School Education.

"You would, then, if understand
YOU" said I, shave the children
learn English, even in school, by
reading good authors, and by wri-
ting down their thoughts the best
way they could, without regard to
rules?"
eyes," said he, "under the gui.
dance Of teachers who, having been
taught to think and feel themselves,
know how to make the children
think and feel. How do you write
yourself? Do you square your el-
bows and say: Now will illustrate
my subject by metaphor? or,
Now ! will be sublime according to
the rules of the much-to-be-discom-
mended Mr.. Quackenbos? Do you
keep that vast abortion, Mr.. Gould
Browns Grammar of English
Grammars,' constantly by your side,
and search painfully through his
1902 pages to see whether by
chance you may not have violated
one Of his, say, 10000 rules? l
think you do no such thing. You
know well enough that the two con-
ditions Of good writing are, first,
clear thinking, and second, the
command ola copious vocabulary,
gained through a loving familiarity
with good authors. Now l would
have that sort of training begin in
the primary school, just as l would
have the childrcns' training begin
there"
"Training in science begin in the
primary schol!" exclaimed l. ''Is
it not enough to begin rhetoric
there? You surely wonld not bring
in all those formidable ologies be-
sides?"
"Indeed I would" said he; go
ology, ornithology, entomology,
ichthyology, pathology, 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 often
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
description of his last shooting ex-
cursion, or girls faint reminis-
cence of last Sundays sermon on
the virtuousness of virtue? Are
you going to be taken in by pedan-
tic Greek names? What is ento-
mology but catching and examin-
ing bugs? And can't baby catch
a bug, and wonder at its curious
form and ways? And does not all
science grow out Of that very Won
der? What is the youthful mind
curious about-at least till we
deaden it with our preposterous
schools-but about these very mar
vels of creation which we do our
best to spoil for him with our
learned jargon and our grammar
rules? Why, every village school
should be an Agassiz museum in
miniature, and the children should
be continually writing learned me-
moirs upon its contents-learned to
them, though not, perhaps, to the
American Academy of Arts and Sci
ences."
"There is certainly something in
what you say" said l, "and l sup
pose, as you would have natural
history begun in the primary school,
you will have physical and, per-
haps, chemical sciences begun there
too; for there seems to be no limit
to the number Of studies you would
introduce into this brave primary
school of yours?"
"Indeed l would" said he, "and
in one sense there is no limit, save
the possible subjects of human
knowledge. Children are even
philosophers and metaphysicians in
their own childish fashion, and ask
questions sometimes which it puz-
zles their elders to answer. Iwould
therefore include philosophy among
my primary school studies. And
surely the unspoiled minds Of chill
dren are 'of Imagination all COM
pact and first and foremost pri-
mary study should be poetry. Onr
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
domains of knowledge, and no far
ther in one direction than into every
other" ."-Harper's Magazine.