The Columbus journal., 1881-04-06
n THIS so.
MR.. JAMES II. SHADES INDICTMENT OF
OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM.

l0e new OTk OCNOOt oOAfVUt
contains a portion Of Mr.. james IL.
SHADES recent speech on the condi-
ton and needs of our public schools.
This must not be confounded with
the Hon. James p. Slsde, State Su-
perintendent of Illinois.
Mr.. Slade does not seem to be at
all afraid of bis pedagogical con-
stituency. He says that "the Quincy
experiment, or rather the Quincy
achievement has established one fact
beyond dispute: Our school system,
as q whole, the land over, is q mis-
ersble and lamentable failure. Its
results are ridiculously inadequate
TO the time and money expended
upon it. We are graduating chill
dren by the thousands each year,
under the general supposition that
they are fairly educated; whereas,
as a matter of fact, in any proper
and comprehensive use of the terms,
they can neither read nor write"
Richard Grant White himself has
been scarcely more condemnatory
of the public-school system of the
United States than this.
Again, Mr.. Slsde says: "During
the lsst seven years / have seen q
great many schools in different parts
of the country. / have seen COM
parstively few that were very good,
many more that were fair, and by
far the greater number that were
positively bad. L have seen q good
many incompetent teachers, but q
good many more incompetent
school-committee men. In short l
have no hesitation in saying at the
outset that such defects as exist in
our school system are mainly due to
the inefficiency OF school boards.
'They tell a story of a man in a
New England town, who, when the
question of the election of school
committee came up, arose and said !:
Il move that we have 10000 school
committee
"'What do you mean p said the
chairman: there are only 1000 per-
sons, men and women grown, and
children, in the town.
"Why," said the maker of the mo-
ton, "I only propose that we have
the same committee we have always
had-one man and four ciphers."
The chief reason of the inefficien-
cy of school boards lies i'm their
inability to appreciate their own
incompetepcy. "Just as it has been
taken for granted that any girl who
graduated with a fair degree of
credit from some high school was
fitted to teach, so school-boards have
assumed that because they were
generally fairly educated and sue
cessful In their own professions or
business, they were perfectly COM
petent to direct and manage a school
system"
SEVERE ON SCHOOL DIRECTORS.
Mr.. Slsde continues: "The lawyer
on the school-5oard would unhesi-
tstingly refer a client who required
spiritual advice to his colleague, the
clergyman; the clergyman would
urge Peters wife's mother to send
for his associate, the doctor; the
doctor would decline to draft her
will and suggest the employment of
his fellow member, the lawyer. But
lawyer, and clergyman, and doctor,
and carpenter, and butcher, and
baker, aud candlestick-maker, will
entirely ignore the fact that teaching
lie a scientific profession, requiring
careful and special education, and
assume the responsibility of school
management with delightfully."- un-
conscious impudence.
"Paradoxical as il may seem. from
my observation of school boards, the
fact seems to be that the more faith
fully and conscientiously they attend
to their duty, the more they impair
the efficiency of the schools they are
intended to improve. In the first
place, for the simple reason that the
whole course of the education of the
average member of the school board
has been in an entirely different di-
rection he is as unable to Judge of a
school as of the management of a
ship. He cannot distinguish be-
tween a good school and a bad
school, or between a good teacher
snd bad teacher. The chances are
that the very things he commends
have no proper place in a well-con-
Quoted and constructed school; and
the very things he condemns are in
dications of interest and progress on
the part of the pupil, and enlighten-
ment and originality on the part OF
the teacher. The probability is that
the more funereal the aspect of the
school, the more rigidly erect the
pupils, the more profound the 81.
lence, the better pleased he will be.
Teachers long ago discovered
this tendency, and shaped their
school management to conform to
it. New teachers grew into it, as.
suming it to be the correct thing,
and there came to be incorporated
into our schaol svetap, THE nrapoa-