The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1874-12-19


Teachers Association, President Chad
burn, of Williams College, read a paper
on "Waste Labor in Education from
which we make the following extract:
There is, first Of all, waste from
imperfect teaching. By this do not
mean alone lack of thorough informa-
ton, painfully evident as this often is.
But bad habits of study are allowed to
be contracted by students, which last
a lifetime. We raise all too seldom an
accurate standard of knowledge.
We suffer our pupils to learn as boy
would make stone fence-all at hap
hazard, with results of struggling
heap where there should be wall
The worst Of which is that the slovenly
habit of acquisition sticks, SO that we
may be reminded of the Greek musician
who asked twice Us much for teaching
those who had other instructors-one-
half for unteaching the pernicious.
We should rather study not only TO ac-
cumulate information in our pupils, but
to cultivate in them clearness Of
thought, accuracy Of conception and
precision of expression.
A second source Of waste is the teach
ing Of unimportant things. Our text
books are crammed with details of III
formation which can only be of value
in later research, and which only serve
to confuse and burden the mind. If
any one of you take his best scholar
nnd ask him to write out, when he has
finished given text book, just what
he remembers of that book, you will
find he viii put down less in proportion
to the cumbersomencsso of the volume.
We need clear, terse, outline text
books. we should get them if we
would cut down our best text books
half or more. The writer's would grum-
bic, but it would be as when college.
student grumbles at having the profess.
or run his pen through his finest pass
ages. Let me specify, thirdly, that l
do not mean that we should teach less,
but that we should teach more valuable
matter that our whole force should
be spent only in what is valuable
There are things that many cannot
learn to neutrality-suspicious. of lang
uage and the higher mathematics
which should be given the go-by by
many. Throwing these by, we need to
put every energy in ourselves and
fbe1d every energy in our pupils to
the most thorough learning of what is
most essential and logically valuable
just here we are met, fourthly, with
the plea that learning needless things
as long lists of propositions that the
pupil may know them when they turn
up in parsihg-is excellent discipline.
that 1t is good to be afflicted" we'll,
80 it is. but the whole of the worlds
framework is arranged to give affection
IN such liberal measure that we need
not to 60 out of the way for it. 1t
were good exercise to cut down oaks
with stone hatchets, but axes of the
best steel would cut down more oaks,
and it is the best steel that our day
must USE It used to he held that chill
dren were toughened by exposure to
dampness and all stresses of weather,
and those that lived did seem to grow
hardy; but that fallacy has long been
exposed. We need then to free our
text books of the succession of puzzles
which depress the pupil who regards
them as essentials and teach re-
al essentials. Akin to this evil
ls that Of teaching children in
branches for which they are not yet
ripe IN age. There is on the one hand a.
great difference in the capacities Of chill
jren, and, on the other, reatdiyersity Of
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