The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-06-08

so much more rapid than that of earlier days
and at the same time on lines so widely differ
ent from those formerly pursued, as to bt
fairly revolutionary. Compare the McCor
mick reaper with the hand sickle; the cotto1
gin with hand card; the locomotive with the
post-chalse; the telegraph with the specia
courier; the turreted iron clad with The
wooden walls Of England, vaunted in prose
and verse less than n quarter Of a century
ago, and note the world of difference, the
seven-league stride in advance revealed by
the comparison. And not only in tho materi'
al world is this advance to be noticed for III
medicine, law and theology the change is
equally great. ConsidertIe methods pursued
by the physician of modern scientific training
and then think of the leeching and blistering
OF his precursor of only a few short years
ago. In law, mark the slowly dawning rec
ignition of the sacredness Of personal liberty,
as we'll as the enlarged comprehension of the
more remote effects Of statutory interference
as evidenced in the change from our present
policy of exempliEg the debtors home from
N'Ss+~iA " bhS viz - "iISi WYNN bio
debtors person was subject to seizure, when
he could be cast into prison, and for lack of
tangible treasure be deprived of that priceless
treasure, his personal liberty. And in the
world of religious or political speculation the
same forward movement has been recorded.
How essentially different are the days in
which the fullest liberty is guaranteed
lnsersoll in even his most outrageous attacks
Or what is held sacred by the great mass Of
his hearers, from the times when that type of
non-aggressiveness, the Quaker, was not I'M
molested of persecution. In fact in every
department Of intellectual activity the same
movement is to be noted. The spirit of mod
ernism is essentially the spiiit of enquiry.
Nothing is taken for granted; nothing is be-
lieved merely be :ause Those who preceded us
have believed in 1t. Theories and doctrines
accepted for ages as automatic truths are to-
day suddenly placed in the witness box and
cross questioned as to the right of demand
ing belief. The result is doubt, examination,
enquiry, discussion or the processes by which
error is sure eventually to DO eliminated and
truth evolved and hence the universally of
the progress to be observed in every phase of
modern life.
But if this progress is so distinctly notice
able in the departments referred to, its mani
~festation in the change from the old to the
new in educational methods is not less strik-
ing. Those of us who are so fortunate, or
unfortunate, as to have reached the shady
s'de of thirty have only to call up our person.
al recollections If we would fully recognize
how different is the district school Of to-day
from that OF a quarter of q century ago.
twenty-five years ago the pedagogue had for
his duty primarily the enforcement of disci-
pline. Together with his discipline a little
was incidentally communicated
but chief in Importance, outranking all othor
school-room. And the manner of
is maintenance! With how many a sigh do
We remember those days which ought to have
'een the happiest of or lives, but which
made wretchsd through a senseless,
brutal tyranny. How vivid is our r~ecollec-
ION of that instrument known sometimes AS
he "taws," perhaps because it was employed
n " bringing us up to taw !" or again named
he cat, because to match the nine lives of its
it had nine tails, net each gifted
With life, but nevertheless each capable of
a most lively impression, as we had
'bundant opportunity Of learning, to our
Tiei. What oceans OF tears were shed, what
orture was inflicted on trembling little
orms in those days, ard all for WHAT For
All through a wretched mistake,
he mistake Of borrowing . system from in
to which il was suitable and at
emptInG to apply it to another with which it
'as utterly at variance. In the army the
older was under a commander, as the
cholar III the school is subject to his teacher.
IN ship board the sailor must obey every or
er of his superior officer. Neither army nor
avy could exist without discipline, therefore
is equally necessary in the school
This, or something like it, was the
easonlns of those who adopted semi-military
equations for the government of schools.
hey did not see the weakness of this rea-
oning, but it is easily detected. The soldier
hen facing the foe, the sailor when his heart
rows cold with terror at the awful voice of
he storm, must each perform manmuvres
pom whose proper performance the salvation
ship or army depends. TO insure the
roper performance of those duties in the
ICE OF danger it Is necessary i'll leisure time
} reheaFse and repeat them over and over,
ntil they finally become '.second nature"
} be performed mechanically and without
iouslt when danger will have deprived the
arson exposed TO it of all presence of mind.
But The pupil of the district school must
ice no danger, must perform no difficult
Why so much discipline then?
es' why? When people once began to ask
lemselves this question they were not long