The Portland daily press., 1882-10-28
Our Schools.

The complaint is becoming common over
the country that our Schools yield very in
adequate returns for the time and labor and
money invested in them. So expensive ma
chinery it is thought, ought to turn out bet
ter work In New York the journals are
earnestly discussing the matter, and their
pages TEEN with communications from
fathers, mothers, and guardians, mostly of a
fault-inding nature. The most frequent
complaint is that the system of training is
diffusive over many studies, instead of con-
centrative upon few. The memory is
stimulated into almost morbid activity,
while the reflective faculty is left dormant
and undeveloped for lack of training. A
father who complains that he is overworked
in teaching his child himself at home, in or
der TO help her get along With her multiplied
ty of studies, writes the New York Herald
as follows:
The remedy is an easy one Abolish such
lessons as French and drawing, which are un-
necessary and undesirable for rublic school in
structioD, and bring the studies down to the
three RS" with but few additions. Let these
teache rs teach these lessons thoroughly during
SCHOOL HouIS anu iedVe out lIbtI6 fOI home in
structlon. French as now taught is farce
and child passing through every grade of a
public school could not at the end of that time
exchange three sentences with a Parisian
Drawing is worse. Fancy child being told TO
bring an original design for an o l-cioth to he
passed upon by teacher the next day and
furnished with four inches of transfer paper to
aid in the task!
The Sun quotes these words of the Herald
correspondent, and makes the following
comment:
That is, the trouble with the public schools
IS that they impose too great a variety of tasks
on their pupils. II is impossible for boy or a
girl TO become proficient in any of them The
pupils get very superficial knowledge Of
many branches, and are well grounded in
none.
The moral effect of that is bad, for the lesson
of thoroughness is the great lesson for a Young
person to learn. The multiplicity of studies
too, canfuses the miods Of the pupils, and they
may do very much of the injury attributed to
overwork. The pupils Set TO peri I'm ia Ks
impossible to them, aud they go on cannon
see their way ceary. All this is extre ~ l.
trying for young mind. aud for an old one,
too.
The remedy for the evils complained of,
therefore. must be found IN simllifyiDp the
course of instruction. When thai is applied
the schools will be relieved of a ot of faucN
teacns rs who divert the attention of the uupils
from substantial studles, the ele me Dtary
branches will he learned moro thoroughly, the
mines OF the pupils will be clearer ard the
boys aud girl will be less weared with then
work, even if the hours Of study are not at al
abridged.
Tie pa bic schools were ns founded 10 teach
anything re than The simple rudiuet tar v
bra CHI s + snowflake. Nor cln they + Fl A.
bly, Teach m"rt, Ii he, teach them lhornughl,
III the few Yeas which blnet nine pupils ont
OF a hundred Can give t. school.
The complaints made and remedies sug-
gested are quite as applicable to schools here
as to schools in New York The same dis
content exis here. 1t may be we'll
founded, or it may be i'll founded, reas-
enable or unreasonable; but 1t is Ger
tainly on the increase. The opinion widely
prevails that our schools undertake too
much and so do nothing thoroughly. Quite
possibly it is an erroneous opinion. But ii
exists, and must be argued away. 1t cannot
be contemptuously Ignored nor dismissed
with sneer