St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-11-30
High Schools Pernicious.
AN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS LAWYERS
INDICTMENT OF PUBLIC CLASSICAL Ed
UCATION.


AN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS LAWYERS
INDICTMENT OF PUBLIC CLASSICAL Ed
UCATION.
From the Springfield Republican.
The recent criticism by our Boston
correspondent of the views of classical
high school education expressed by
Amos Noyes of Newburyport in the re-
cent hearings on the subject of cO-edu-
cation at Boston leads the latter to write a
long communication to The Republican
i'll defense and explanation. Mr.. NOyes's
extreme assertion was, that Sin Essex
county classical education has ruined
more boys than any one thing else, and
to extend it to girls is simply to widen
its calamities and emasculating infiu
ence." His points are =
|. There are twenty times as many
persons instructed in Latin and Greek
as can ever use these languages. Our
system gluts and over supplies the mar
ket, so that 19 out of every 20 are finan-
cially worse off than if they had not
been lured by the cheapness and great
prizes which they fancy only within
the reach of those who know Greek.
2. Free classical education is failure
as a matter of culture. To offer it as is
now done to all without reference to
their taste or future prospects is the
same as to throw pearls before swine.
In Newburyport, Salem, Haverhill, etc.
there are from 60 to 100 boys and girls
studying Latin, and half that number
studying Greek. But of all these not
more than two or three persist unto the
end. A class of so begins, but dwin-
dies to five or six. The remaining 85
per cent. have abandoned forever the
''humanities" over which they have lost
the best part of two or three years.
Lost, [ say, because as matter of cuL-
ture it would have been infinitely better
to have expended the hours devoted to
Greek and Latin to Latin alone, or to
French. A smattering of Latin is of
some service, but IL smattering of Greek
is as useless as phrenology.
3. Classical education is a failure
used as IL discipline when carried too
far ; and to impose on all, whether they
have aptitude or not, is carrying it too
far.
4. By offering Greek to every one,
you induce many more to study it than
otherwise would. 1t draws off atten-
tion from natural philosophy, chemis
try and botany by taking time that
would otherwise be devoted to them.
5. 1t is to perniciOus business because
it contributes nothing at all to the in
dustrial faculty or power of dealing
with the concrete. 1t draws off annual
| ly from industry and business thousands
of boys, confines them for four years
more in high schools until their physi-
cal constitution aud energy is measur-
ably impaired. He who at IA could
have left school with knowledge of
grammar, reading, writing, geography
and arithmetic sufficient for doing the
business of an Astor or Stewart is re-
tanned in school till 1S and crammed
with Latin, Greek, geometry, algebra,
etc., when he comes out habituated to
sedentary employment and enfeebled
bodily by it,-with no taste for busi-
ness or activity of any kind, with su
peIciliOus Importance frequently, too
old to begin at the bottom round of the
ladder in factory or store with boys
three or four years his junior, and too
inactive to compete with them, and too
ignorant to begid higher up. Now,
when you find nearly all the business
talent and mOney-making men to be
men without the high school culture,
and find the high school graduates fill
ing some subordinate positions as clerks
or book keepers, you have a right to
presume that there has been a loss OF
energy, or physical vigor and of busi-
ness capacity, brought about by those
four years of confinement over books
1t seems to be this which has rendered
Massachusetts such an excellent place
to emigrate from. Boys are too old to
begin here they have been anticipated
by lads who have entered business
walks while they were plodding over
Greek, Latin and algebra. Society
needs to be protected against the mis-.
taken ambition of parents who imagine
that they are doing a kindness to theil
boys by confning them in high schools
when in reality they are enfeebline
their constitutions, stretching theil
tastes beyond possibility of qualification
and thus uniting them mentally anC
physically for those hard times whicl
they in the course of nature must fol
low.
6. 1t is delusion to suppose tha
classical education is essential to higl
position, or even characteristic of emf
nent ability. 1t is a luxury. The in.
culcating of the principles ofmechanic'
of natural philosophy, of chemistry
has done more in the last century fo
advancement in true knowledge, polit,
living and just government than thou
sand years of Greek and Latin. In th,
name of the hundreds of young lawyer
who are destined to be poor all thei
days because they have made the mis-
|, fake of dwelling among the tombs o
languages instead of the marts of trade
| protest against the fossil crucible in
to which Horace Mann's scheme of ed
ucation is casting every ambition
Young man, and in which it is now pro
posed to immerse the young women.
Z. 1t seems to me that the remed,
for this lies within our system, if schoO
+, committees could be found resolut
, enough to carry it out. Begin the ling
! nistic course with French and German
If more is wanted, let these be follow
ed by Latin, and that by Greek. Bu
advance no one to Latin who cannO
first read and translate a page minut
s of French or German. Begin with tn
g 18th century and work back, not at tn
t first century B. G.. and work dowI
e The same reasoning which puts Lati
: before Greek should put French or Gei
e man before Latin.
e 8. But if it be found that school CON
a mittee men cannot face the curren
/. foolishness- and dry -as-dust prejudic
e for things fossil and antique, if scienc
: must be shut ont of our schools, an
e medieval education be persisted il
e then it would be better to abolish hig
o schools altogether and rely on acade
It mics. Costliness is poor check, br
O ii is better than none at ALL Bette