American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-04-10
Science in Common Schooling.


If it were possible to dispossess an
average school boy OF all the mental de-
velOpment and discipline, with all the
knowledge, general and special, which
he did not get in school, there would, we
fear, be precious little left for the school
master to take pride in Still more,
were it possible to set off against the
certain benefits of schooling of the usual
sort the advantages which better
ordered system of primary culture would
afford, the popular appreciation OF the
schools would, we are certain, be seri-
Ously disturbed.
There are few places that can boast a
more liberal scheme of public schooling
liberal, that is. in time and material
than this city of New York. Her chill
dren may begin with the alphabet and
end with a college diploma without
other aid than that which the free schools
afford. Yet the records of the schools
show that of the hundreds of thousands
of children who have begun their school
ing in them more than half have gone
out unable to read intelligently an easy
page of print. OF those that are able
to stay longer-that is, more than three
or four years-it is but the fortunate
few who are able, when their school
days come to an end, to read with un-
Outstanding the foreign tele grams in the
morning paper; probably to not one in a
hundred is the daily report of prices
curr. MT any more int, Eligible than a page
of integral calculus.
The fault lies less with the brevity of
their school life than with the misuse of
it which the school system entails-a
system which MAJ es a fetch of alphabet
and multiplication table, and wastes on
these tools of culture the children's best
opportunities for gaining power to use
them.
To insist that science teaching be
grated on a system whose practical re-
suits are SO meager is only to make mat
tiers worse. The sciences belong to a
higher level of education and should be
left for ripper years. At this stage of the
child's development the sciences, as sys-
tematized groupings of related facts and
principle }, have no existence; only objects
and sensations, palpable facts and tangi-
BILE relations have being in the child
world; and the child is merely the OBJ
serving Traveller and explorer. The sci
entific geOgrapher, geologist, and the
rest come later. Could we control the
work of the common school, therefore.
we should vigorously exclude all science
teaching, real or pretended, and all
teaching not scientific.
Schoolmasters who imagine that teach
ing scientifically means examining chill
dren with facts, principles and theories
IN geography, grammar, physiology,
physics and what MT may accuse US of
making distinction where there is no
difference; but the difference is as wide
Is between right aud wrong The most
unscientific teaching which the common
schools-and not a few of our higher
schools, also-are guilty of appears in
their teaching of the sciences. Wewould
have none of 1t. Nevertheless, we say
as we have said before, that to educate
truly, the work of the primary school, in
matter and spirit and method, should be
from first to last, purely scientific. In
other words, the work of the primary
schools should be shaped to accomplish
these three ends:
1. The systematic development and
training in quickness, keenness, and &C
curacy of all the child's faculties OF
sense through the pIeasurable exercise
of the senses; for in primary culture JOY
is the great quickener and inspirer O
effort.
Q. The systematic development of tn,
child's mental faculties by varied acts O
discrimination, judgment and memory
dealing primarily if not exclusively witt
sensations.
8. The formation of right habits il
knowledge getting and in applying
walton, handling, investigation and usin!
of common things.
As the young surgeon is set to stud,
the human body; as the student of min
ing engineering is made 'sensibly &C
quaintcd with the ores he expects t.
deal with. their mineral associates ant
the conditions of their existence; as thu
practical machlnist studies mechanics
30 the child should be taught to stud,
the world he has come to live in; not a
. specialist in science but as practica
man determined to masreI his environ
ment. In this way only can his power
of sense ana intellect be rightly devel
oped and trained and he be fitted to pla
well his part in the great game of life
TO this end letters are useful as auxl
iaries and for the cultivation of the wild
fields of thought that lie without the pal
of science but they should not be mad
the beginning nor the end of instruction
If one part in ten of child's school-lif
be devoted to letters and the rest EN-
ployed as we have indicated he will NO
make less progress in reading than if tn
whole time be given to them, and he wi
be immensely better fitted to turn tn
art to advantage in after years. Beside
if the childs schooling be ultimately CT
short, as now happens in the majority {
cases, his scientific training would fit hil
to make something, nay, to make th
most, of his out-of-school opportunitie
Far better absolute ignorance Of letter
with the inquiring habits of mind and et
ucated senses to be got by scient fic trail
ing for year or two than the half-a
qnired art of reading which the majorit
of children carry from the school
and apathy of knowledge which they to
commonly exhibit Anprjcu