The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-12-11

SS"Ooio
out adequate machinery and corresponding
expenditure; that the iaborer is worthy OF
his hire, and if he cannot earn it teaching
school he will in some other way; that every
dollar slbtracted from the salary of a
teacher is permanent injury to the cause
of which he is an agent; that every deduc-
ton from the personal respect due to a
teacher is deduction from the efficiency
of the whole system; and that the true
policy, and the cheapest in the long run, is
enlightened liberality, and not penurious
economy.
end. The next source of possible trou,
BILE to which l ask your attention is the
demands of Progress.
That our public schools are not meeting
entirely the wants of the people is appar-
ent not from any precise and easily under
stood complaint, but from certain under
current of opinion that arises only now and
then to the surface. What the reformers
want is not so evident as that there is a
want which they are unable exactly to
formulate.
Their complaints cover wide ground, and
they are often inconsistent with one an
other. They complain that the wave of
progress, which is carrying forward all
other institutions, has hardly reached the
public schools; they say Il have heard ii
said within the year, that men of the last
generation were better schooled than those
of this; that they read better, spelled bet
ter, wrote better and spoke better, that
they knew more Latin and more Greek,
and were better mathematicians; they COM
plain that the public school of to-day does
not give the boys and girls of the day the
kind of education that they need; they COM
plain that children are crammed with the
dry dust of grammar, the gristle of spell
ing, the dead bones Of etymology, fossils
of geography, musty scraps of history, and
are taught nothing of what is really inter-
esting and practically useful; that they
learn at school little or nothing of the glor-
les of the heaven above them, the wonders
of the earth beneath them, or the mysteries
that young people are sent out into the
world after five or ten years. schooling,
utterly and avowedly ignorant of all that
it becomes them most to know. They are
to live and be healthy without any knowl-
edge of the laws Of life and health; they
are to work without ever having been in
structed in any kind of labor; they are to
make money without any knowledge of the
laws of wealth; they are to cooperate with
others without any knowledge of the laws
that hold human society together; they are
to govern others without any knowledge
of the general principles of government;
finally, they are to be the means of bring
ing into existence another generation to
perpetuate the ignorance, the follies, the
vices and the crimes of the present.
The picture is exaggerated and highly
colored, but we cannot deny that it pos
sesses certain likeness to the original.
1t is too true that, considering the railroad
pace at which other arts and sciences are
advancing, the art of education is behind
the times. 1t is too true that the external
improvement which is visible in our school
houses, school books and other helps to
learning, has not been accompanied by an
equal advancement in the results achieved.
1t is true that the rough log benches of fifty
years ago produced as good classical schol-
ars as the vanished walnut of to-day. 1t
is true that while education has gained in
extension it has lost somewhat in intensity.
1t is true that learning of all kinds is less
admired, less esteemed, and less sought
after to day than at any previous time since
the revival of letters. 1t is also true, in
my opinion, and speak only for myself,
DDS of education must be changed, re-
formed, revolutionized, before there is even
possibility of meeting the demands of
advancing public sentiment.
For this revolution which is slowly but
surely coming, teachers ought to make pre-
paration. With tho sails properly trimmed,
there is no danger to be apprehended from
the gale: rather will it send us on our voy-
age with increasing speed. But element
airy school instruction must, in the future,
be more from living mon and less from dull
and dead books; it must be more knowl
edge of things and less an accumulation of
words; more training of the eye to see,
and less memorized catalogue of what
the eyes of others have seen; more 4 pre-
paration to live and act in the world, and
less examining for competitive examina-
tions; more of study into ourselves, our
bodily organs, our mental powers, our pas
sions, our appetites, our wills; and less of
diletantte dallying with circulating dec-
mails, frivolities of parsing, Roman pro-
nunciation, hard and soft consonants, me-
tres of Horace, and choruses of Aschylus.
3rd. The next danger to which your
attention is directed, is the demands that
are made in the name of it. For long
time the higher education of the young has
been almost monopelized, both here and in
England, by the churches. OF the hun
dreds of so-caled colleges in the United
States, more than three fonrths are either
avowedly or actually under the control of
some religious denomination; patronage is
solicited for this reason, and the professors
appointed are either preachers Or distin-
guished laymen of the ruling faith. This
claim on the part of the various denomina-
tions to educate those young men of their
fold, who were able to pay for their educa
ton, absurd as it seems when closely exam
ined, has been very generally acquiesced
in, and without attracting any particular
notice. Buff the claim is good as regards
higher education, it is equally good, nay,
much stronger, as regards elementary edu-
cation, for the impressibility of the mind
varies inversely as the age of the student.
We, therefore, naturally expect the Church
to demand controlling voice in primary
education wherever she is strong enough to
enforce her demand. cit is our duty"
says an influential Church paper, "to
oppose to the Pagan error that the State