Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1882-08-31

which. we fear. is rarely the case-ihe
beginning of school lie had better, for
the children's sake. be put off until they
are six. eight, or, when home conditions
are right, ten years old. For this rea-
son vast multitude Of children. whose
educational prospects are the brightest.
are now kept from school. II the school
work We're differently planned and reg
ulated, it might be better for some OF
these children to be in school little
every day: but not under present con-
ditions The fact that they are not in
school, however. must not be taken as
evidence that popular interest in educa-
ton is declining, or that popular edu-
cation is likely TO suffer for it. As a
rule children who begin serious school
work at eight or ten years of age are as
far advanced in their studies at twelve
as those who begin at three or four, and
usually they are both physically and
mentally in better condition for instruc-
ton.
ting off of the other end of the period
spent in school; and yet even that is not
an unmixed evil, as the schools are
usually conducted. When the free
school system was first developed, the
belief was general that schooling was
the one thing needful to enable young
people TO get on in the world; and it
was common thing for parents to
make great sacrifices TO keep their chill
dren year after year in school, only to
find in the end that their sons were too
old TO do boys work. and too proud TO
begin at the bottom of any trade or 9th
er Industrial calling and work up. They
must do something more genteel, and
crowded into the towns and cities in
pursuit of clerkships and quasi-profes-
sional engagements, in which a little
present salary was accompanied with
extrayagant expectations seldom or new
err TO be fulfilled. Others as unwisely
pressed on in their school course. mort
gazing their future. Ia prepare them
selves for learned professions, vainly
seeking to win fame and fortune in
places for which they had no real fitness.
The condition of much schoolei butill ed
ucated girls was. if anything, still worse.
A natural reaction against this mis-
direction of youth and natural result OF
the failure OF the public schools to shape
their work to meet the practical wants
of the multitude. is the disposition TO
cut short the school period early TO be-
gin in earnest what seems to be the real
business of life. Though ninety-nine in
every hundred youth cannot hope to go
10 college. their educational needs are
largely sacrificed TO make the school
possible tributary To the college. Time
which the majority of youth need for
practical preparation for their life's
work is thus very largely given to stud
les of value only in their relation TO a
subsequent college course which il
never to be enjoyed. 1t is no evidence
of popular unwisdom. as most teachers
seem TO think. that there is an increas-
ing popular indisposition TO surrender
SO much of youths precious time TO
such impractical work. There is moth
ing so valuable TO youth As education,
but unhappily schooling and education
are yet far from being synonymous; and
if the schools are declining in favor, it
is because the intelligent public see this
fact more clearly than the mass OF
school officials do. -Scientifc american.