West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1882-03-29
Foot Races and Brain Races.

The spectacle which was to be
seen few days ago at Madison
Square Garden could hardly be
called an agreeable or improving
one, by any man of decent taste or
feeling going to the bottom of
the thing. 1t may be quite prop
er that half dozen men who have
cultivated the possibilities of their
legs should use them to earn their
living; every day-laborer does the
same decently enough in another
way. The indecency comes in
here: that the respectable public
should have the whole process
thrust upon it whether or no-the
sponging down, the comments and
oaths of the unwashed spectators,
the Precipitation on this man and
the red blotches on that. If all
this be sign and necessity of our
advancing civilization, it is GER
tain that we have a good many
nasty sloughs to pass through in
our progress. At least, that is the
opinion of most thoughtful men
and refined women.
Yet how many of the men and
women who are outraged by the
performance in Madison Square
realize that their own sons and
brothers are taking part in an ex-
hlbition as unnatural and IRA
tional in almost everylpreparatory
school and college in the country !;
only it is upon brains, not legs,
that the race for success depends l.?
Let any one of our readers glance
around their circle of young ac-
tquaintances and they will find that
every one, boy girl or student of a
profession, is inst now straining
every nerve to "pass" a spring or
deal. This consists of a given
number of questiones on certain
Textbooks. The student is anx-
iously examining. If behindhand
hehas his private tutor or coach"
or quiz" (for there has sprung up
flor the last generation of these pur-
veyors of undigested knowledge),
who will prepare his brain for the
trial as the legs and bodies of hur-
dle-racers are rubbed and stimula-
ted. Presently he comes to the
barrier. Hopl over he goes, and
trots along with no idea in his
mind except to make ready for the
next. There are usually four of
these scholastic hurdles in the
course ola year. -
Now, parents see the nervous
strain upon their children of this
modern system of goading, cram
ming aud dragging, but they quiet
ly receive it without examination
or report. The strain, they think,
is injurious but the system is good.
1t was not the way they were
taught, but they assume without
question it must be a better way.
Is it? There are among the elder
generation, who absorbed knowl-
edge slowly and TRANQUILITY, pro-
found historians, masters in the
use of language, and men whose
characters owe as much to the noble
influences of the classic literature
as do their bodies to their mothers
milk. VIII the proportion of such
men be larger in the generation
trained by the new method? Let
us look into the facts Of the case.
In the last fifty years the amount
of knowledge requisite for liberia,
education has been almost trebled.
The classes, helower mathematics,
history, moderate comprehension
of geography, logic and English
literature, constituted the basis
which most colleges furnished to
onr fathers, and on which they
built such superstructure as they
could. Now the modern languages
the higher mathematics, science
with all its new vast aggregation
Of facts and surmises, the, daily do
ings of the whole world brought
close by press and telegraph, are
fields which the lad must conquer.
no more time is allowed out of
young mans life for the modern
course than was given to the old.
The problem for teachers to solve,
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