The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1880-11-03
OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.
BY Charles Francis Adams, i'll Harper's
Magazine.

country and are organized, as nearly a
possible, rs a combination of the cottoI
mill aud the railroad with the model State
prison. The school committee Is the boarC
Of direction, while the superintendent-th
chief executive officer-sits in his centra
office with the timetable, which he calls
programme, before him, by which one hou
twice q week Is allotted to this study, anC
half au hour three times a week to that
and twenty hours term to a third and a
such 70 time one class will be at this point
and the other class at that, the whole NOV
ing with military precision TO given DIES
tIuatIou at q specified date. Mechanical
methods could not be carried further. The
organization * perfect. The machine work,
almost with the precision of clock-work
IL is. however, company front all the time.
rom one point OF view children re-
gaIdei as autOmatOns; from another, as
India rubber bags; from a third as 50
much raw material. They must move in
step. and exactly alike. They must receive
the same mental nutrlment in equal quaint
tie- and at fixed times. It's assimilation is
wholly immlterial, but the motions must
b. gone through with. Finally, raw
material they emptied in at the pri-
uaric-. aud matched out at the grammar
gr4de--aui il Is we'll
This was the very general-in fact, the in
evitabie-re-ult on the lhrge scale of the sys-
TEN OF superintendency in vogue during the
last TWENTY-FIVE years. 1t was also, perhaps,
natural and necessary phase of develop
meut. something which had to be passed
through. though it Immediately resulted in
several undesirable things. In the first place,
10 far as the child was concerned, the imita-
tive or mcmorzng faculties were cultivated,
and little or no attention was paid to the
thinking or reflective powers. Indeed, 1t
may almost be said that child of any origi-
oh lfsrr.i rY,l oh. f.,rf-f
wa- looked upon is wholly out of place in a
public school. The idea, under the system,
was MASSES of children designated from us
age by names, instead of more conveniently
by numbers, who learned certain rules by
heart and applied them with mechanical
prumptitude and correctness. Any deviation
from this semi military methed was sternly
repressed as a breach of correct discipline.
Starting from this point, the course of the
s5-called educational development up to a re
cent period has been natural, logical, and
commonplace. There nave been lust three
steps TO it-memorizlng, examinations, pro-
grammes-the last two. the latest education
al hobbies built upon the traditional toun-
dation of the first. The way IN which these
led from one on to the next is obvious
enough Ia the first place, time out of mind,
all knowledge was, educatlonally speaking,
looked upon vast accumulation of facts,
rules, and definitions, and the grand aim
aud object of teaching was To impart as
many rs possible of these to the youthful
mind The way to impart was to cause them
to be labOriously committed to memory.
Thus the teacher sat in his chair, sort of
lone fisherman Oh the shore of the great
ocean of things known, and he hooked up
out of it now a rule, and now fact, and then
again a definition, and he gave them to the
children, and saw that they swallowed them,
whether they liked them or not, and whether
~ .taI nv than, Rut
in process OF time it became apparent to the
more observing that the knowledge thus i'm
parted was not retained and the eXamina-
ton was then devised as a means of assur-
ing the purveyor OF knowledge that the facts,
rules, and definitions impaired were held, 50
to speak, on the intellectual stomach for at
least a reasonable period The examination,
however, a. il was organized and gradually
ramifed into a fully developed whole, almost
necessarily called the programme into exist
ence. The world of knowledge was too large ;
there were too many facts and rules and def
nitions for the teacher, as well as for the
taught and 50, for the protection of the for
mer, it became necessary to stake out from
the wide domain. by certain metes and
bounds, the districts within which he was TO
search for the hidden treasures. Anything
obtained or TO be obtained outside was not
to count. The programme was thus a relief
to the teacher, clearly marking as it did the
limits within which the examining process
was to be carried on. 1t made his work pos
sible. The development of the system
then complete.
Under these circumstances, education be-
ing reduced 10 little more than mechani-
cal process of examining, with periodical
nerve trials to ascertain the degree of reten-
ton, the average child not unnaturally felt
toward his school and what was there re-
qured of him very much a learned dog
IL. IL, 1 . Il II
his task-maSter. Accordingly, the sicken-
ing dislike of school, and Of things taught at
school. is with the majority of those eman-
cipated from it almost the strongest aSsocia-
ton connected with early life.
The work of organization being completed,
and the mechanical having been overdone,
new course of thought was inevitable. A
re action was certain 10 come. 1t began
several years ago. OF late it has assumed
a more definite shape and is finding clearer
expression, This reaction is founded on
very deep principles. Its direction is away
from mechanism, and toward science. In
deed. the cardinal principle of this new
departure, If 1t may so be designated, Is !
that there is just Is much science in de-
veloping the more ordinary faculties of the
human mind as there is in raising crops or
extracting minerals from the earth. There
is an easy, natural, and attractive way of
training the intellect, there is of training
the body, if your philosophy could but find |
it out. 1t Is not the way To find 1t out, /
however, to analyze the thing to be taught, |
dividing and defining and taking to pieces |
and putting together On the contrary, the |
work must begin at the other end. The /
operation of the child's mind, the natural
processes of growth and assimilation which /
go in it, its inherent methods of develop |
ment and acquisition, must be long and I
patiently studied. The superintendent of
the future Is thus a BacOnian in his philoso-
ply. He rejects at once all mechanism, all /
tradition, all prt0Fi theories, all military /
methods. He has recourse to a slow, pa 4
tlent process of induction. Believing that
the human mind is something more than a /
cabbage, he argues that if there is science /
IN manurlng and growing cabbages, there is 1
probably science of mental Development /
Accordingly, he watches the child in its /
mothers arms and at play. He sees it learn /
to speak and to walk. and analyses the pro-
cess through which it does it. Then he /
follows the school boy out to the ball /
ground and the skating pond. Wherever
he goes, he notices one thing, that at every
age, from infancy TO manhood, the child is /
continually learning TO do with infinite ease
and skill things most difficult to dO-things /
which he himself would in vain attempt. |
II he questions that fact, he has but careful l
ly to study the principles of equilibrium
ana momentum; and then, having thor
oughly mastered them, and got them at his
tongue end, let him go upon the ice and /
try TO follow some boy through little fancy
skating. He has taught the boy the rules /
of grammar, and then called upon him to
write the English language: why is it that
he, having taught himself each principle of
speed and balance involved, can not now /
slide of on the outer edge? To skate is as /
difficult as to write; it is probably more
difficult. Yet in spite of hard teaching in /
fha and M -, -
they can skate beautifully, and he can not
write his native tongue at all. So the
superintendent Of the future learns lessoT, /
on the skating pond, and goes home from h /