The Portland daily press., 1876-09-18


Mr.. EDITOR: In these days of universal re-
form there is one department of the public ser.
vice concerning which there is no demand for
investigation or amendment-namely, our COM
mon schools. In the face of that thorough
complacency in sour public school SYSTEM
in which every New Highlander is educated, il
requires some courage even to suggest that il
does rot present so near an approach to perfec.
ton as is attainable by mortas. Yet we be-
lieve that the plan now proposed for our Port
land schools, while open to grave objection in
theory, is impossible in practice, and that the
attempt to carry it out will be positively hurt.
full to both teachers and scholars. According
to the programme arranged for the several
classes of schools. the subjects required to be
studied are SO many, and the time allowed for
each branch is SO short, that the inevitable re-
suit will be a very superficial. acquaintance
with each. For instance, let us examine the
amour. of work required from child of 10 or
ID, in the first class of the Grammar school.
The arithmetic, to which formerly the four
years in the Grammar and still another in the
Willis or the High School were devoted must
now be finished in the third year in the Gram.
mar school, while the unhappy little mathe-
matician, still dizzy with the headlong rush
through interest and discount and square
root and twenty other topics, is led on into the
bewidering labyrinths of algebra and geome-
try. The geography has been finished also
and is reviewed in connection with physical
geography. The more intricate and difficult
parts of English grammar are taken up, and
United States history, reading, writing, SPELL
ing, drawing and music have their appointed
hours. This might seem sufficient, nay. we
might even think that too much is required of
a child whose mental powers are yet immature,
while time for exercise and wholesome recrea-
ton is imperatively necessary for his physical
well being; but evidently the School Com
mittee are OF different opinion. We copy
from the programme:
Oral instruction respecting matter and its
properties. force, molecules, gravitation, weight,
specific gravity, motion, action and reaction.
compound motion, machinery, friction strength
of materials, use of materials, hydrostatics,
capillary attraction, hydraulics, pneumatcs,
acoustics, sources. communication and effects
OF heat, steam engine, warming and ventila-
ton. thermometer, barometer, hygro meter,
rain guage, clouds, winds, meteors and aero
lites, auroras, halos, sources and reflection of
light, spectrum, structure of the eye, telescopeg
microscope, spectroscope, electricity, magnetic
electricity, magnetic telegraph.
After such list we can only say
"And still the wonder grew
How one small head could carry all he knew"
Any one at all familiar with oral teachin-
will appreciate what minute and accurate in
formation on all these subjects would be re-
quired on the part of the teacher in order to
convey the most purely elementary ideas to a
class We can scarcely assume that such
learning, rare among college professors, will be
met with in our Grammar school teachers, and
how can they find opportunity to acquire it,
when the preparation of countless tables of sta
tistics, the correction of written examinations,
and teachers meetings necessarily occupy
much of their time ont of school, time
still further shortened by the new rule-whose
"sweet reaSonableness" as Matthew Arnold
would say, we fail to MISUNDERSTANDING every
teacher to be present 20 minutes before the open
ing of each session? Is it not possible that our
teachers are overworked? We believe it is
done thopghtlessly, but
civil is wrought by want of thought,
"As well as by want of heart''
x
instruction of children is to teach them how to
study, to give them habits which shall guide
them in acquiring knowledge hereafter. In
such system of education as is sketched in
these programmes the pupils part is merely to
hold up his little measure-too often we fear il
will prove very like a sieve-to receive the
never ceasing supplies which the teacher must
draw from the Pierian spring. 1t was surely a
truer idea that our fathers held, that there
must be patient labor if the result is to be
worth attaining, that there is no royal road to
learning, that the office of teacher is to direct
and aid the scholar in the path of knowledge
not to drag him up by main force. With a
small class of exceptionally intelligent chill
dren the proposed plan might be highly sue.
cessful. With large class of widely differing
capacities, the result must be an excessive
amount of study on the part of the amb tlous
and thorough, while the more idle will DO little
or nothing, and accurate com prehensio OF
any one subject will be rare 10 either case.
There are numerous practical objections tc
minor Details but the chief characteristic of
the whole is sort of breathlessaess, wor k
ing against time, which is exhausting and dis
heartening. We believe that far better results
as to mental discipline and preparation for the
duties of life would be attaioed by a thorough
drill in few important branches In the in
terest alike of teachers and scholars, in the
cause of general education, there should be at
least an opportunity for discussion before the
syst EN- now proposed is adopted as the regular
course of instruction in the public schools o.
our city. X.