The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-05-21
EDUCATIONAL.

An effort is being made to raise $25,-
600 for scientific building for Dickin-
son college, Carlisle, Penn.
DURING The last forty years the Apple
tons have sold 100000 600 of "Webster's
Speller," or ,000,O00 year.
THE revised course Of study in the
Philadelphia schools provide that more
time shall he given to geography.
| TIE public school accommodation in
Philadelphia is inadequate, n large num-
Der of children being unable to get in
structions. The schools are defective in
many ways for lack of II superintendent.
A VERY large share of the solid intel
lectual work of Germany is done by the
university professors. In almost every
department III which serious aud persist
ent labor is demanded they stand i'll the
front rank.
! GRADUATES of high schools will here
! after be admitted to the Ohio state
university on their diplomas, and with
out eXamination-on condition, however,
/ that their school course has extended
over three or four years.
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, st. Louis,
has invested funds to the amount Of
! $500, 900, the whole amount of assets
showing IL value of $S50,3 1t has
seven departments, loo students and
IS professors and teachers.
, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, st. Louis,
! has invested funds to the amount of
$500, 900, the whole amount of the assets
showing II value of $3.50, 900. 1t has
seven departments, 1900 students, and
60 professors and teachers.
The Cleveland board of education are
about to discuss the question of modify
ing the high school course, on the ground
( that it is so overcrowded with subjects
beyond the mental grasp of many Of the
younger pupils that they drop out before
they complete it.
Miss VI. A. WEST is school superin-
tcndent in Knox county, Illinois. The
state board of agriculture added an edu-
catiOnal department to the exhibits ut
the state fair, Offering eight different
premiums. Miss Vests schools took
/ six Of the eight premiums. The super
mtcndent Of the educational exhibit
recommended that the board grant Miss
/ West medal.
Mr.. Woo TszE TUN. the new COM
missioner of the Chinese educational mis-
sion i'll this country, has just issued
Letter of instruction to the Chinese stu
cents here, which is as quaint us it is
wise. He not only exhorts them to
make the best of the advantages given
to them, but also begs them not to
neglect the study of Chinese, and es-
pecially of Chinese etiquette.
One of the spcakers-ex -superinten-
dent Larned-at a recent teachers meet
ing i'll Buffalo, mentioned one of the
great faults of our graded systcm-its
tendency toward mechanical teaching.
$50 many pages learned and recited,
ne said, {" is by no means true teaching.
Much Of the work required of the pupil
i'll our text books is practically OF no Use.
1t is time thrown away. The grade is
too narrow
Mr.. HOLMAN Hunt wants to form
society for looking after the material in
tercsts Of painting-a society which
shall be the means of transmitting the
practical wisdom of one generation OF
painters to another. He mentions as
necessities and functions of the society
library and Il workshop, IN arrangement
for the importation OF colors and COM
plete collection of experiments with
colors, varnishes and oils, simple and
mixed.
lT is absurd to say, as some writers
do, that what is being demanded from
the schools by sensible people is the ar
rangcmcnt OF curriculum higher than
now in use. 1t is really the reverse;
what is wanted is simpler, more COM
pact course Of studies, impaired in more
Intelligent, vivid and inspiring way than
that i'll operation at present. There are
already too many stables, and too adj
vanccd ones III the school courses.
Fewer studies and better teaching are
what are beginning to be recognized as
the practical requirements of the school
WORLDLY. Y Trib"nc.
TIE teaching of sewing in the public
schools is thing which no person of
reflective and practical mind will urge.
There are already, as has before been
said. too many things taught in our
schools, and Americans are not yet pre-
pared to be guilty of the amazing stupid
ity of turning their school system into
means of industrial education. The
sooner that the noisy persons who are
asking all over the country for such i'll
dustrial education are silenced the better
for the schools. Ii they would cease ex-
pending energy on this vain folly, and
apply it to the organization Of special
technical schools, they might become
benefactors instead Of remaining nui-
sancos. There is no place and no time
in public schools for industrial teach
Ings.-N. y Tribune.
A GERMAN physician, DR.. Treichlcr, in
paper read before the association of
Natural Historians and Physicians mt
Baden Baden, asserts that the present
method of school instruction is cause
of disease, and is useless, producing
mental confusion. The great objects of
school education are intellectual disci-
plinc and the awakeniD : of desire to
continue the cultivation of the mind,
and these, he says, are almost entirely
frustrated. Habitual headache has in
creased among both boys and girls, and
this headache not only destroys much of
the happiness and cheerfulness of life,
but produces impoverishmcnt of the
blood and loss Of intellectual tone, and
reduces many highly-gifted child to
the level Of discontinued drudge. I'M
doubleday, he continues, the principal
cause of the headache is intellectual
ovcr-exertion, entailing work at night,
and the insisting by parents on the too
earnest takingup OF variety of subjects,
music among the rest.