Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-01-30
EDECATION.4L LEGIsLATYON.


IN editorial III the Argus of Tuesday
upon this subject opposes efforts to i'm
prove our common schools by farther leg
islation. While there are some good
ideas in the article there are othcrs which
are erroneous. 1t may be true that we
have not yet learned the best methods Of
educating children, but they are such as
are generally practised, and though often
denounced as imperfect and wrong they
are the best we have, and are sustained by
the general Judgment in preference to
other ways and means Of instruction pro-
posed and suggested. If other means of
instruction, clearly better, adapted to the
education Of children in masses, were
presented TO the parents Of the land for
their consideration, they would OF course
be gladly and Immediately adopted We
cannot conceive why parents and instruc-
tors should follow wrong methods of
teaching if once they were convinced that
they are wrong. That they DO not adopt
what the Argus calls fright education
must be because they do not understand
it, or If they understand it, are not be-
levers III the theory or see insurmounts-
bic difficulties in the application to our
schools. Plans that would operate well
in a family might he entirely impractcable
in schools of the masses. The time, at
tention and liberty of action, physical and
Intellectual, allowed by tutor to 4 single
pupil to whose instruction he deyotes HIM
self Is impossible in our common schools
The question with Us IS how shall we
best educate all the children of the State
with such appropriations as the State can
afford, to render them intelligent Ameri-
can citizens. capable of employing the
political rights and privileges which they
will inherit for their own happiness and
the welfare of the State and Nation. It is
not how shall the children Of some favored
individual be educated. but how shall the
children of poverty, crime, and degrade
ton, as well as those of the rich, be
brought into our schools and taught to be-
come respectable and useful men and
women. Doubtless there is room for i'm
proyement, and that is precisely whatsthe
active friends Of public schools are NOV
ing for. There are obvious faults in orr
State system, and these they desire to have
corrected.
The Argus speaks of the robust scholar
ship in our schools twenty-five years ago.
If the Argus will consult Ex-Governor
Crosby of Belfast upon that point it may
change its opinion. About twenty-five
years ago, he held as Secretary Of the
Board of Education the first Teachers In
stitute ever held in the State we think. In
that Institute there were probably some
one hundred and fifty teachers gathered
to be instructed, who were, we have no
doubt, as well qualified Tor teaching as the
average of teachers in the State. One of
the exercises which they were required to
perform by the director OF the Institute,
Professor Fowle Of Boston, was to write
upon their states about dozen words in
common use, in order to test their spelling.
After the words were written an cxami-
nation proved that only one of the whole
body had spelled them correctly and
spelling, be it remembered, was one of
the studies in those days which scholars
wrestled with from the cradle to the age
Of twenty-one, performing extra service
on moonlight nights at spelling schools
in order to become more thorough in the
art. Another grand difficulty which the
same Institute encountered was to under
stand and explain the process in simple
subtraction where the figure in the minu-
end is less than the one below it in the
subtrahend. This was puzzler; and yet
arithmetic in those respondent days of
our common schools was the chief accom-
plishment of robust scholarship. 1t was |