Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-19
PRACTICAL AND IMPRACTICAL EDu-
CATION.

We are glad TO see thsa the local Board
OF Education has had the good sense to
make arrangements for fair test OF the
Quincy school system, and that the most
certain method Of testing it, narnely by
importing a Quincy teacher, has been
adopted. We have no doubt as TO the re-
suit of the experiment, The Quincy sys
ten has onty to be known to be preferred,
for it is enphatically a practical system,
and it really educstes, which Is more than
can be said without reservation of the mere
common methods. Unfortunately ff2hicns
and traditions lave governed educational
as well as all other matters IN the past, |
and the influence of these fashions and ira
di3ions has been quite strikingly exhibited |
during the recent educational furry in this
city. It has for some time been I. super
stition thai the study of arithmetic was OF
the first Importance, and the desire that
this branch of instruction should be fully
attended to has led to the growth of a
slavish Difference for arithmetic Of itself,
witheut any reference to its practical use.
As result teachers have come to regard
brilliant tricks of fence schoolmaster-
isns, as theyare called in the profession
as the aim Of instruction, and the public
have followed the lead with characteristic
thoughtlessness. There is always danger
that the ultimate purpose of educa-
| ton will be lost sight of, and that
the ceremonial will come to dominate,
as it has SO universally done in re-
lgion. Indeed, this tendency has been
the bare of all educational policies in
all ages and countries, and it Is
only within a few years that any
determined, general, or enlightened effort
has been made to substitute practical for
impractical education. A common cant
phrase among the old fashioned educators
has always been the value of impractical
studies for mental discipline. This has
been alleged invariably as an excuse for
devoting the most precious years to the ac-
QUESTION of the most useless knowledge.
The extravagant regard for the classics OF
Greece and Rome which uDquestionably
has operated more than any other cause to
retard intellectual progress, to foster
narrow and mischievous conceit of learning,
and to distort the general view as to what
constituted desirable instruction, is di-
rectly in point. But it is quite possible to
employ other studies as harnfplly as the
dead languages have been employed, and
if the old shibboleth of aids to mental dis
cpline be brought in support OF the wrong,
quite as much stagnation may be produced
by arithmetic or grammar as by the clas-
sizes. We do not hesitate to say that the
amount of time bestowed upon grammar
and arithmetic in the schools at present is
out of all proportion to their usefulness.
At least half the arithmetic taught is never
needed in any way from the time the
school career is closed, and as for grammar,
nobody ever learned to speak, write or
compose accurately from the study Of
text book. Years are in fact thrown away
in the acquisition of dry and barren
forms, which ought to have been utilized
for the conveyance of real practical knowl-
edge. Arithmetic is no doubt necessary
to an educational course, but it is not the
one great purpose Of education, and too
much OF it may very easily be taught. 1t
should be sought to teach children theout-.
lines, at least, of the history OF the human
race the physical structure, first of the
earth they inhabit, second OF the bodies
they exist through. The language OF this
country should be made familiar to them
through its best literature, and thus taste
and judgment would be formed and
strengthened at the same time that knowl-
edge is impaired. One Of the most
fatal mistakes of the whole educational
system is the theory of textbook compila-
ton. 1t seems to be thought indis-
/. pensable that every iota of attractiveness
should be carefully eliminated from those
works, and that the information should be
| conveyed in the hardest, driest, most ugly
and repellant manner. When books are
made on the same principle for adult read
ers they are at once rejected. The world
will not look at your Dryazdusts, but
consigns them to the lumber roo1n or the
pulp makers. But it is nevertheless
thought necessary that children, whose in
tellects are even more delicate and fas-
tidious than those of grown people, should
have their knowledge impaired in the least
savory and appetizing way.
II the schools taught through the medi-
um of the higher productions OF English
literature, we are convinced that the Ell
fects would be such as to vindicate the
change. As it is the children may 90
through the entire school course, and after
all know hardly anything of importance,