The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1877-09-28
The SupcFIiciaiity Of the Public
schools M Now Taught.

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The leading journals in the principal
Northern and Eastern cities continue to
comment upon andcriIiciSe the syStem Of
education as pracliced in most Of our
schools, both public and private. They
insist that II cannot be too often or too
strongly impressed upon the attention
OF our educators that 10 crowd the work
ot ten years into one, or three, or four
years Is TO disobey The first laws OF health.
tul growth. Precocity in children Is not
a thing to be cultivated, but to be re.
pressed. A precocious child Is q child
under the strain Of abnormal develop.
ment. To the PhilosOphiC mind the con.
temptation Of such development Ia
always sad. The North American, whose
views are always sound and reliable,
points out that the blame for whatever
is blamable in our public school syptem
cannot properly be laid wholly upon
those who arc merely its agents. The
technical course was not their creation,
Hundreds Of teachers Gud themselves
compelled 10 work not only within GER
tain prescribed bounds, but up to those
bounds in all directions. 1t seems TO
have beeh conceived by some persons that
every mind can be induced 10 conform 10
certain fixed conditions. There never was
a greater blunder or blunder iraught
with such calamitOus consequences.
We're there any way to equalize the abili.
y to comprehend, /! would be different.
That there is no way 10 bring about that
sort Of equality the experience Of ages
fully demonstrates. To arouse in the
mind OF Il child desire for knowledge il
manilestly the first indispensable. 1t is
true that one can make sort Of auto.
matte task.absorber Of almost my child
not really idiotic. A parrot can be taught
to speak phrases, but nobody has ever
succeeded in making a parrot compre.
hend those phrases. This illustrates the
modern system Of examining tolerably
well. Hupdreds OF young petsons can reel
of the lore Of books as glibly as "poor
poll exhau'ts its repertory of stock phra.
sea. But that is not education. To cLu.
cate ia to develop, to draw ont,
to enlighten the comprehension. A con.
trary course ia TO fill the mind with I'M.
ages OF the nature Of which 1t has no in
telligent comprehension. 1t has digested
nothing, and, therefore, has assimilated
nothing. And II by chance u bright child
escapes physical disaster after such treat.
ment in our public schools, in most in.
stances the mature person, when he or
she essays to teach, will discover that i.
is impossible to in any way utilize the
mass OF information" 80 accumulated.
This would not happen were girls and
boys educated in The natural order. No
person can teach anything which he does
not himself fully comprehend. Comprc.
hension or the power to comprehend goes
before all knowledge. Our system at
tempts to teach too much, and 80 teaches
very little. This mistake will some day
be rectiiied, but nobody can tell how many
souls and bodies may be sacrificed before
it can be done. The rage for Smart"
children equals any OF the RACES which
ill the world with dislempers without
end. But constant hammering NUT
have some effect even upon cast iron
system.