Los Angeles daily herald., 1873-11-08

the examination of the fare offered by
those Delmonicos, and Occidentals Of
Education, the Harvards, the Yales,
the Princetons, and others of the class.
/ make no apology, devoting the
greater portion of my address to crti-
cism upon the curriculum or course
of study in our colleges and univer-
sity. 1t may be urged that it is
going out of our province to attack the
curriculem of these institutions. |
ansWey that our district schools are
the feeders of the colleges and univer-
stiles. We lay the foundation, teach
ers in these complete the structure.
We certainly are Interested in know
ing. what kind of. an edifice is reared
upon our ground work. Again the
public school teacher is a sort OF a
father confessOr to the parents and
children of this district. Is boy to
be sent from the district school to
complete his education i'm college
or university, in nine out Ofthe ten the
parent will consult the teacher in re-
gard to what course of study it is best
for that boy to pursue. To aid the
teacher to knowingly give advice |
write. And again at our last Institute
the topic elected by far the greatest
interest in its discussion was the ques-
ton of the value of the Greek and
Latin clases in education, and the ad-
visibility of introducing the study of
them into the advanced grades of our
public schools. BY a majority Of
three to one, the question was decided
in favor of introducing the Classic.
And again-among the professors
patrons, advocates, and retainers of
this monastic or traditional course Of
study in our higher institutions Of
learning our numbered some Of the
bitterest opponents and enemies of
of our common school system. These
stand ready at any time, with gloomy
arrays of statistics to prove our fail
ures, their teachers ignOramuses or
worse, and the children in them going
pell nell to the "demnition bow
vows" One distinguished reverend
instructor, not long since, declared
our common schools to be ''hot beds
of crime and immortality, enemies to
God and foes to the church." be-
lieve most implicitly in our common
schools; I believe that upon their con-
tinuance and success, depends the per-
petuity of our institutions, the welfare
of our people, and the prosperity of
our nation. Believing all this, does
not blind me to defects in them. But
these defects sink into utter signifi-
gance when weighed against the in
calcuable good they have done and
are doing.
l deny the right of these self-an-
nointed High Priests of Education to
cast me out of the synagogue, because
1 cannot cry their shibbaleth, and
their right to weaken the growing
confidence of the people in our conf
mon schools. Our common school
system and the method of instruction
in it, are open tocriticism but not to
wholesale denunciatiOn. / claim that
our colleges and universities, in adher-
ing to an antiquated curriculum or
course of study does not meet the
intellectual wants of the age; l claim
that they do not give the mental cul-
ture demanded by modern life.
shall make an attempt to prove this.
Away back in medieval centuries
when the first CLEANS of the sunlight
of Intelligence were beginning to il
UIlc VI ViC
Dark Ages-sOme quaint old peda-
gogue seeking for some new invention
to attract pupils to his school, hit up
on this strange device. Superstition
had attached a mystical reverence
to the sacred number of "Seven"
which in those semibarbaric times
was supposed to be the key to order Of
the Universe. "There were seven car
dinal virtues, seven deadly sins,
seven sacraments, seven days in the
week, seven metals, seven planets,
seven apertures i'm mans head, land
why not" said the jolly old peda-
gOgue, make course of Liberal study
consist of seven arts and occupy seven
years; and then following another
strange fancy about the relation of to
in a certain geOmetrical figure, these
seven arts We're divided into groups
The first three Tor greatest Arts Gram
mer, Logic, and Rhetoric composed
the Trivium Qiterally, a place where
three roads meet, and the remaining
four, Arithmetic, Geometry, AstrOnO-
my, and Music formed the Qadrivium
Qiterally place where four roads
meet, or cross roads, and in those
brave days of old, when they deified
Belief and crucified Doubt, when
priestcraft was one of the Fine Arts,
and Necromancy one of the liberal
sciences this fanciful scheme of Edu-
cation became the prevailing system;
and from one generation of pedagOgues
to another through succeeding centu-
ries was handed down unquestioned
and unchanged. Empires rose and
fell, nations perished, new worlds
were discovered, new truths evolved,
but the curriculum of the school
altered not. Investigation and ex-
pertinent brought forth new arts, and
new sciences; but needless of their
claims in intellectual culture, every
generation of youth were forced to
make, their pilgrimage to the temple
of knOwledge-by the devious wander
ing roads of the Trivium and the
Quadrivium, that lead through ancient
Greece and Rome, Pedantic Masters,
from the clustered halls of Colleges
and Universities, the pretended seats
of liberal culture, thundered anthems
against every new science against
every new discovery made in the
realms of knowledge. With a devotion
akin to idolatry they clung to their
Greek and Latin authoritiesa as the only
source of sound learning, whether in
philosophy or in rhetoric, in poetry
or in history, in medicine or i'm law.
Said they, "The learning of the Greek
and Latin languages Is the only fOun-
dation of a thorough education; the
knowledge of the grammer ought to
proceed all other knowledge; and phil
Ologists are the only thoroughly
learned men,"