The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-09-22

New England High School have watched our
public schools with more than common inter-
est wish could add with general satisfac-
ton. The most prominent educator Il beg par
don for the slang word) in Western state
whose schools are modelled exactly after our
own, said to me last winter 'If I did not feel
that as to education of youth, we were merely
in transition state I would abandon my pro-
fession." An old clergyman, for forty years a
teacher and close observer, told me he had
discovered why country boys came into the cit
les and filled the places of those born there of
wealthy and influential parents despite the So
called greater advantages of the latter class.
SIT is neither the enervating influence of lux
ury nor the worse habits acquired in large cit
lei" said he. ''though these have certain in
fluence. 1t is mainly due to our vicious sys.
tenn of instruction, viz, the attention paid to
large variety of studies pursued at the same
time. The country boy. he said, "learns a few
things aoeN. He masters the rudiments. and
therefore has taken properly the first great
step in all education. He has learned to mas
ter what he attacks. He ends by mastering
his business and achieving a success. The city
boy, who under certain pressure has acquired
a superficial knowledge of his varied round of
studies, ends as he began, superficial and jack
at all trades, good at none"
One of the wisest men this country has ever
Seen spoke of the fatal gift of versatility. If
fatal to the gifted what must be the effect of
forcing it on medocrity?
One of the weak sides of our public schools
as knew them as teacher, was leaning to-
wards methods rather than results. Our pupils
tetered in and out to their classes with pecul-
lar half tip-toe gait They recited in a GER
tain tone of voice. They raised their hand in
certain set way to ask question. They dis
posed their hands and feet in certain position
under their desks. Now this is well to reas-
enable extent; but there was SO much attention
paid to their down sittings and up rsings that
then felt that such maximum of method
tended toward minimum of result. felt
sure that the pupils who lavished so much at
tention or these little things withdrew por.
years ago the Scribes and Pharisees' omitted the
weightier matters ofthe law" while scrupulous-
ly attending to the mint and cummin" and
zealously made clean the outside of the cup
and the platter" thereby losing sight of the
inside, and they were notably wise. men and
full of all the Improved systems" Fortu-
nately for them. however, living 1000 years ago
they knew only the relation of disciple and
master. Had they lived in the 10Th cen fury
and known all about institutes, normal schools,
educators, educatresses, county, town and state
supervisors, would they not have groaned as
we do over the useless redundancy of nomen-
clature and called for schools, school masters
and school mas once more? A few branch
es well learned instead of such rotating cur
riculum that the mind retains about as orderly
conception of what it has learned as the eye
q nf QrrQ n
apd shapes inside the kaleidoscope.
1t is well known by those who have attained
to excellence in anything that at some.part of
their lives they gave it earnest, continuous at
hours practice day for two years will make a
person of fair musical abilities good perfor-
mer on a musical instrument. One hour day
for lifetime will not do as much. A years
first rate attention to a modern language, hear
ing it spoken, speaking it, reading and writing
it. working at every day two or three hours
will give the pupil mastery of it, l except
Russian and those cognate languages which
conjugate their verbs in the three genders. But
Eench running as it does with weekly or semi
weekly lessons through young lady's entire
course of study with an occasional 'joining a
class for conversation as they do after they
leave school, will not be sufficiently mastered
to enable them to properly attend to their
wants among French speaking people-not
even to order meal successfully. l appeal to
all GTaV6liou AU6FlCduS DIS 10 tu6 general COT.
rectness of this statement and also to any good
liDguist among them if Americans are not the
worst linguists in the world, thanks to our edu
cati0nal system.
Now this mistake crowding of many studies
at one time obtains from Maine to California.
Take any catalogue and you will see how the
day and week are divided up with here a little
and there little attention to many things.
We are moreover losing sight of the interests of
the pupil in those of the teacher The more
the studies the shorter the daily session. Few
schools to-day hold the honest six hours-three
in the forenoon and three in the afternoon.
Why? 1t is more agreeable for the teachers to
be through their labors at an early hour-much
earlier than in any other calling. One would
think by the short sessions they hold they had
really discovered the royal road to learning.
In closing desire to call attention to the
tendency to make text books by which persons
can superin tend class-I will not say teach
them-wthout any practical knowledge of the
subject matter. We have for instance systems
of drawing consisting of a series of engraved
lines, &C., for the pupil to copy. A teacher
who would be obliged for instance to write the
name of the animal or object stated under it to
make it recognizable, can sit and let class of
any number of girls make marks and lines &C
cording to this, that or the other System" used,
as the cover tells you, in such a celebrated
school of art, In every department of study l
find text books tending to enable incompetent
persons not to teach, that were impossible, but
to Superintend without much fear of discovery
by the children. This matter of new text books,
the methods employed to interest teachers and
committees to the continual adoption of new
ones, deserves chapter of twenty pages, and
then the subject would be but touched upon. 1
propose in second paper to show how our
young men are largely instructed away from
what they need, and to end by offering few
suggestions. DAKoTAH.