Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-09-15
EDUCA rION FROM A POLITICAL
POINT OF VIEW.


In all these papers we have been
as practical as possible; oar views
have been grounded on these two !
practical questions: What sort of
boys have we to deal with, and what
sort of men do we want to make OF
them and in our last paper we con-
sidered the most important class of
ali, the average Tennessee boy as we
find him in the country; and so inn
pOrtant did we consider his case
that we were unable to conclude it
in one paper. We had advanced
thus far, that he was to understand
thoroughly his own language and
have a complete acquaintance with
the history of his own country and
so much of that of other nations as
might be practicable, and especially,
as part of the history of the United
States, he was to know by heart the
United States Constitution. So far
the education proposed is one equal
ly applicable to all citizens of the
United States; what we are now
coming to will be modified by the
consideration of some specialities
applicable to the boys of Tennessee.
We have to consider not only what
we want to make of these boys but
what we want them to make of the
good old State.
In investigating this question we
take for our text a sentence of Prof.
Huxley's, which we have quoted
before i'm this paper and what can
never be too much brought to our
attention. Speaking of the bound
less agricultural and mineral re-
sources of the State which had been
brought to his notice by the scavans
of Nashville, he said: :" All these
things, gentlemen, are worth to you
exactly so much as you have the
knowledge and industry to make of
them" There in a nut shell is the
key to our idea of education for
young Tennesseeans. We want
them trained to make the most of
all these things; not to scratch a
little the surface of the soil. running
it as far as possible and then, having
raked a few dollars from it, to
abandon it and rush to Texas or
California or Kansas and begin the
same thing there, but to stay in Ten
nessee and find in and beneath her
soil the FL Dorado that knowledge
and industry may make of it. We
are thankful to learn that emigrants
to California are starving there, and
we are personally in possession of
letters from more than one of our
Tennessee boys who have gone to
Texas and are grOaning to get back
here again.
Promising, then, that we are pro-
Viding education for Tennessee
country boys who mean to stay in
Tennessee, we commence without
further preface.
4rithBetic.-We want our young
Tennessee to be thorough arithme-
ticians and, as far as may be, to have
some knowledge of algebra, which
is only IA generalization of arithetic.
But a good deal of time is generally
wasted in arithmetic, and to avoid
this we hope that our teachers will
bear ia mind what the arithmetic is
for.
1t is for two purpOses-tO teach
the boys to keep accounts and to
qualify them for studying with pre-
cisiOn the elements of science, short
IytOb be discussed. Ifhe learn nothing
else, he must learn to keep accounts;
no farmer can be really prosperous
unless he keeps accurate accounts
clearly made out and regularly post
ed so that he can always tell what
he is making or losing, how this
thing pays, what expenses need re-
trenching, etc, etc. All this he
needs Just as much as the merchant
does; he in fact is a merchant,
though his stock in trade il diff
ferent from that of the city mer-
chant. And while on this head we
had better say that his wife, if she
5 to be 4 helpmate for him, should
ne be n good accountant too. All
hnvvn
their formal record under prop
per heads of DR.. and Cr.: And
to give time for this to be done
Thoroughly, as well as for other
uses to which arithmetic has to be
applied, we want theschOOl arithme-
tics to be thoroughly weeded of an
immense quantity of trash that will
never be of any practical use-Tare
and Tret, Allegation, etc, etc. Let
them be ruthlessly cut out, and Us
soon as he can add, substraet,
multiply and divide Federal money,
let him learn some simple system of
bookkeeping and then go on to Vul-
gar and decimal fractions and the
SQUARE and cubic root.
One word, too, about the examples
for practice which are given so
abundantly. Hundreds of these can
be solved in three lines by a simple
equation in algebra that are almost
iRsoluble by arithmetic rules; and
we believe that a simple easy train
ing in algebra up TO quadratic equa-
tionS will be a gain rather than a
loss of time.
GeonetTy.-FOr boys of such a
class geometry is made much too
abstruse subject. Geometrical
ideas in the concrete can be readily
communicated ut any age; the logic
of ge0metyy should follow long at-
ter. No age at which a child can
be taught anything is too early for
the acquisition of geOmetrical con-
ceptions, and it is conceptions and
not denominations which are de
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