Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-12-02
NEKORIZING At SCHOOL,.


In the lecture which Carl Schurz is de-
liverng this season upon Educational
Problems, he deals blow at the practice
which prevails in too many OF our schools
of oblging pupils to commit long lessons
in the textbooks to memory, word by
word and page by page, making this par
rot-like process stand in the place of true
education. Scholars and parents as well
as our best teachers will thank him for
this, hoping that it may aid in abolishing
system of teaching that ought not to be
tolerated, because it Is not useless alone
but absolutely hurtful. A very large per-
centaoe of the failures in schools where
this method prevails, in health as we'll as
in rank, is due to its pernicious influence.
1t taxes pupils unnaturally. robs them OF
sleep and exercise, creates incessant wor-
nv of mind, and at last causes disgust with
school and very often obliges the assist
ance of the physician to be called in to
prevent serious consequences to the health
Mr.. Schurz defines 1t as method for the
development of human stupidity, meth
cd which improves the memory at the ex-
pense of the understanding. 1t is to put
a textbook into the hands of the pupils
and then pronounce those the best schol-
ars who repeat the answers set down in
the books most fluently. "What can be
taught in school," says he, sis necessarily
every little. 1t is not very important that
..it should be much, but it is important
"that it should be so taught rs to make
subsequent self-education easy. That
"cannot be taught by merely practising
.the memory. When can we say we are
educated on any particular subjectp not
certainly when we can repeat a mere
..methodcal form of words having ref
"erence to the matter. Take for instance.
'the question, What is cloud3 Here is
zone pupil who has learned the answer
'from the textbook, and who sings out
"that answer with measured cadence
"without missing single syllable. But
sin few days he has forgotten the first
sentence of the answer, and then 1t will
"be found that he has forgotten the whole
"of it. There is another child who cannot
remember single word given in the an
"swer to the question in the textbook,
"but lie can describe the vapors ascending
Unto upper air and forming themselves
Unto clouds there, and that child is much
"better educated than the other, though
she may express his crude notions of
"cloud in very imperfect language"
This gives the correct idea Of the me-
chanical memorizing required in many of
our schools, but rarely found in the best
colleges and other of the highest institu-
tons of learning. There are studies,
where this faculty may be legitimately
and properly exercised, as in the acquir-
Ing of dates, statistics, historical and other
facts, enough to give it full and healthy
exercise, but to strain it to the acquisition
of an indefinite number Of pages of such
branches of learning as grammar, arith-
metic, mental and natural philosophy,
physiology, chemistry, and others that
might be named, is indeed a process to
developc human stupidity and reduce at
tendance at school as well as to sink tie
standard Of scholarship. Pupils should
not be required to commit to memory such
tasks, but he should be regarded as the
best scholar who can give the correctest,
clearest, and most original information on
the subject in his own language. BY the
memorizing standard of scholarship, our
best physicians if questioned in physi-
ology would probably rank as ounces, be-
cause although they understand the sub
ject thoroughly. very few of them could
we dare say give in answer the exact
words of the text books found in the
schools, for if they ever were capable of
performing this mechanical process, they
were glad to forget it as soon as possible
after entering into the practise of their
profession, and rely upon the better mode
of telling in their own way what they
know themselves of matters requiring to
be explained BY this system the boy
who can glibly repeat description of the
railway locomotive as he finds it in his
natural philosophy, would take the first
rank in his class, while the inventor of
the locomotive. George Stephenson,
though gifted with the power to or
iginate this marvel of mechanical genius,
would be marked at zero, because his
stammerng and unlearned tongue had not
mastered the text book which described
his invention. Between mechanical men,
DRY and intellectual memory there is q
wide distinction, the latter acting far high