The Portland daily press., 1880-11-08
Practical Education.

10 he Editor Of he Press:
Iu your issue of November 4th is an article
from the 'Fitchburg (Mass) Sentinel headed
Benefits of Education No comment is
made upon the article. The inference is that
it is approved by the Press management or it
would not have been published. Does it mean
that similar results would follow if graduate
of the Portland High School should apply TO
some Portland merchant for employment and
be by such merchant subjected to examination
OF the kind indicated in the article. Does it
mean that such result would follow tn
average graduates of any high schooli in New
England, or out of it? This inference may
be admitted A long acquaintance with the
high school work and its results will incline
any unprejudiced observer to accept the pic.
ture as faithful. 1t is from such results that
careless observers have concluded that the
high schools are failures; that they do not give
practical education; that they raise the ex-
pectations of boys and girls who graduate from
them, above the homely life of labor and fix
their desires on genteel employment; that it
therefore makes them loafers, scorning honest
work for an honest living; that the (educa-
tion?) instruction impaired in them is orna-
mental rather than useful. These are grave
charges and if true and supported in their
length and breadth, or if any one of them is
true, then the high schools should be abol-
ished. III the school men cannot answer
these charges and successfully refute or
explain them SO as to show their in
justice, then let the high schools go down.
But the same charges are made against all
the public schools of every grade. r. G. White
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Gail Hamilton
DIR. Holland and others of equal fame and
power attack the public schools as the prolific
source of everYevil in society. The instruc-
tion received i'll them is "unpractical'', "su-
perficial, "parrotng', ''memorizing dead
words" 1t makes the pupils Incapable
"idle'', "useess. /" RESTLESS" "discontented''.
etc., etc. These designations are all applied to
the common schools of every grade, by the
doctrinaires above named. Then the news
papers occasionally turn the battery of their
"Columbiads' upon the public schools In
this turmoil of attack the defenders of the
schools should carefully examine all the
charges made; should study these charges in
spirit of honest inquiry; should accept as true
all things really proved against the schools and
endeayor to cure such defects. As the cleo
ton is now over the Republican party trium-
phant, and as that party is devoted to the
material advancement of the whole people, it
is good time to enter upon such an examina-
tion OF the school question as issoutlined above
With your permission | offer a few words as
contribution to such all examination,
The first charge implied in the article QUOT
ed from the Sentinel is that the education of
the high schools is not practical What is
meant by the term practical? What is meant
by 1t as so often used in educational discus
slons? 1t appears to mean the ability to enter
upon any business without learning the pecu-
| liar forms and terms of that business. The
boy is rejected because he does not know and
cannot spell all the names of all the articles
found in large store; or because he cannot
name and make note, draft, bill of
sale, invoice, account of sales, check,
lease, deed, policy, mortgage and let
ter OF credit; or because he does not know the
chemical manipulations of the apothecary; or
because he cannot manage the French depart
ment OF the correspondence of an importing
house. In the same direction this notion of
the practical demands that the graduates of
| the high schools should know how to cut and
make suit of clothes; how to engineer the
building OF a railroad; how to draft a ship;
how to sail steamboat; how to run sewing
machine; how to do the joiner work of a
house; how to make shoes; how to build a
steam engine, etc. If this is what is meant by
practical then the demand made of the schools
| is first absurd. 1t is absurd to suppose the
teacher to know VIII at particular business the
boy or girl is to engage in. He will be con-
flnually blu idering; training girl to skill as
cook who is to be prima donna; or training
one to skill in music who is to be milliner;
training one boy to skill in French as diplo-
mat where he is destined to be hod carrier:
giving one skill as joiner when he is to be q
sailor. A statement of the demand shows its
manifest absurdity.
To carry out such plan is impossible. 1t
would require teacher of every art, trade,
business, in the wide range of American life.
| Portland high school would need two hundred
teachers for its four hundred punis and rooms
and appliances covering blocks instead of a
single building.
There is another idea entertained by some
of those who demand practical education
which will be considered later. OUIs?