Connecticut western news., 1881-08-17
CHAPTER ON EDUCATION.
The Double Rule of Three as applied
 to Business.

to Business.
 The Milwaukee Sun says This IS the season when school teachers are en- gagged for the coming fiscal year, or school year, and the studies are pre- scribed by the board and all arrange ments made for the beginning of trouble with the fall term. In picking up 8 bundle of school books the other day, and carelessly glancing through them, we were struck with the almost Pagan darkness that seems to envelope educa- tion. Journalism, photography, teleg- raphy and the electric arts-everythin in fact, has made the most wonderful progress. during the past fifteen or twenty years, but education, or the study of the sciences, is about the same old succotash that it always was. We see that there are still two grand divisions of the earth, and they are com- posed of land and water. That was the case twenty years ago. We turn over few pages and find the following ques- | tions:
 "Where are the Mountains of the MoonP"
 "Where are the Himalayas ?"
 Between what two bodies of water are the Philippine Islands situated?"
 "State where the river Dnieper rises, what course it runs and into what body of water it empties."
 We'll, 1t has been many years since we left the dear old school room and our teachers, who were so kind, and we are positive that at that time we knew where the Moon Mountains were, the Himala- yas, the Philippine Islands and the Dnieper River, but we can place our hand upon our heart to-day and say truthfully that we do not know where one of them are, and we don't believe we have heard one of them mentioned in the last fifteen years. Still, it must be remembered that we are in the news paper business. If we were dealing in groceries it would probably be different, and we should use the Moon Mountains every day in our business. Customers would expect it, and while they would appear to be looking at the cheese to see if there were any shippers, before buy ing wedge of it, they would in reality
 be making up their mind whether we knew where the Philippine Islands were, and the general course of the Dnieper.
 Some customers are very particular.
 People have expressed astonishment at oR L., I,sxy goods merchants of Milwaukee, and have attributed it to the merchants knowing how to buy goods cheap down east, and sell them less than other mer-
 chants. This shows how ignorance Is stalking through the land. If one could
 peek over the shoulder of the most sue
 cessful business merchants, when they
 are burning the midnight oil, aud claw
 ing into their hair with both hands,
 they would be found boring over a
 geography, trying to find some little
 river in Asia Minor, while their confi-
 dential clerk stood by saying, "Hot,
 hot, hot-cold, cold, cold-now you're
 freezing" Fortunes that last are not
 made in a single day.
 Then there is algebra, and cube and
 square root. Only last week we wrote an
 editorial and didnot know really whether it ought to be published or not. All at once the words of our teacher came to us" Prove it; if it is correct It can be , proved" We threw a radical over 1t, raised it to thu fourth power, extracted the cube root, and having . and 7 given r to us, we easily found the unknown , quantity of z, and the thing was bird. } Suppose, now, we had never had any training in the English sciences! One t of the most successful grocers in Mil F waukee, 8 man who has accumulated a handsome fortune from a very small be- l ginning, told us the other day that he S owed all his success to the use of algebra t and few theorems in geometry when : picking mackerel out of the kit with
 the hook and skipping it against the side a of the barrel to get the brine of, and to !, buying just as close as he could for cash t Where would that man be to-day If he e had only learned to add and multiply I 1facl1OuS, auu uau sIoppc0 IACAS, dAI
 had bought his goods on time, with ter t per cent. added. Teachers have grea d duty to perform, because to greater ol q less extent, they are responsible for thu I children under their charge. No teach }, CT who is worthy the name, and compe Il tent to understand the great trust tha ,t that has been committed to him, or her n would think of turning a child out t d battle with the world and make its owl u way in life, unless the child could, upol m the instant, name every rivulet fror k Kamtschatka to Kalamazoo. If the chil
 should starve to death, in vain effort t vl wrest livelihood from some occupation K its death would unquestionably lie at tn d door of the teacher. The education ( le our youth, in all that will be of no use a. them in after life, is one of the sacredes Il. and most serious matters that can b ke committed into human hands.
 SroL1DrrY.- l. oudon corresponder Al l ok oek