St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1882-10-06

I SIbtlltu lllt llSl Will less llldll
four mistakes; not one was perfect.
1t is just so in reading; the mistakes
in accent, infection, pronunciation,
punctuation and emphasis in the read
ing are countless.
For composition even less pains are
taken. | doubt if one child in n hun
dred, after going through the whole
course of our district schools, can
write n proper letter. | know the
teachers cannot have seen enough
of their epistles to he sure of that.
AS for natural philosophy, chemistry,
and the like, their application to the
uses of daily life is no way learned or
understood, though their theory and
principles may he ut the tongues end.
Drawing and singing are necessarily
learned imperfectly, for strong natu-
raj taste for either is an imperative
condition of its requirement.
Now comes the question, Why are
these things so taught ? The answer is
a little difficult to formulate, because
it involves so many answers.
One reason is that, in the strong re-
action from the old system of teaching
entirely by rotc, everything is so eX
planned, illustrated, diluted, made
easy, that the mind loses its tenacity
of grasp for want of exercise, and so
retains little of that concrete wisdom
whose stores after-life ma, draw on
and use. 1t is just as necessary that
the mind-or rather the memory, in
this case-shOuld have exercise, as the
muscles and il certain proportion of
learning 10y rOte gives tone AMI strength
| 4 Al. i l.. =.
quired in no other way. Learning
should not he made too easy, foI it
loses value, loses power and use when
it becomes play and necessarily makes
our play-in the instructive equaliza-
ton of nature-put on the armOr of
work Il sad witness to which is the
amusement column of every weekly
paper filled with riddles that would
have daunted Qdipus and stupefed
Sphinx, and games like "Throwing
light" "Twenty questions" "Charac-
ters," "CrambO," and the like, which
demand as much intellectual effort as
problems in algebra, and are ''games"
only i'll the outward and visible sign
which has no inward and invisible
meaning. To store the mind with con
crete facts entirely is like buying
wheat by the barrel to make bread !;
but to have no such facts is to grind
up all our wheat into flour and keep
none for seed and future growth.
Another "whyn is that the underly-
ing idea of all our district school teach
ing is, consciously or uncOnSciOusly,
to educate all the scholars to he teach
ers in their turn. The one ambition
of the pupils is to he masters and mis-
tresses of schools us soon aS they are
grown. Girls who ought to fill places
as helpers in their own homes or work
ers in the homes of others, ''help" Il
dare not say servants, though our
Lord himself took on that helpful title
which we scOrn to wear), who are need
ed as Seamstresses, dresS-makers, MILL
ners, clerks, book keepers, are all in
tent and resolved on teaching willing
to do for the poorest wages the hard
est work that Il woman of any sense
and education can do, rather then lose
what they call their ''social position"
| Until this false pride and vanity are
eliminated there is little hope that our
| girls will ever learn chemistry enough
to know the proper condition of Il loaf
of unbaked bread ; the safe way of eX-
tracing stains from linen the physi-
illogical reasons why French heels on
their shoes destroy their health, or
pork and pastry ruin their stOmachs );
the always successful "rule" for max
ing dyspepsia impossible how to make
fire burn, coffee clear, meat tender
or any other useful thing in the daily
| life the average woman must lead ;
for there win never he enough schools
to employ three generation of teachers
at once. Boys, too, suffer from the
same aspirations, in Il more unlimited
way: they all intend and expect to en-
ter professions. Look at the brOods of
callow lawyers who infest all our
towns, learning all the "ways which
are dark and tricks which are vain"
Look at the addle-headed, nOtOriOusly
| Iill-cOnditioned, riotOus medical stu
dents, annually turned loose upon IA
world already lying in wickedness, to
slay their ten thousand as Sampson
did, and with the same weapon. Look
at the thick-headed juvenile thcO-
lOgues who scatter chopped theology
and boned orthodoxy from hundreds of
country pulpits all over the land, hud-
died into the ministry either by their
own Incidence or the urgency of pa
rents who offer to the Lord that which
costs them nothing, and indeed is not
worth haN ing at any cost. What good,
hard working, plodding farmers might
not these have made, what brisk sales
men, what acute mechanics instead of
disgracing professions that should de
mand of ii lawyer incorruptiblc hon
esty, unbiased judgment, pure moral
I,,l,. a.
with IL type of education unknown to
the common school of physician the
keenest insight into mental and physi-
cal organization, the capacity for dis
tinguishing and arranging facts of oh
servation into unfailing diagnosis, the
patience of IA saint, the cheerfrlness
of an angel, and the grave SENSE of re-
sponsihility, the possessing earnest
ness of man. And of minister of
the gospel what shorld we ask Why
should any man enter that work with
out the all-powerful love for God and
man, the innate reverence for truth,
the unwearying endurance, the burn
ing zeal, the eXhaustless faith and
hope, in short "the whole armor of
God" which alone can enable them,
.'having done all to stand ?"
Now what ought to he the aim and
result of public schools in a republic
Ought it not to he the education of
good and useful citizens? | say the
education in its derivitive sense; the
leading out of that which is best, most
useful, in every character. 1t will he
answered that to do this involves sep
arate individu~i training that is too
slow and to expensive for public insti =
tutiOns; but that is not what | mean.
mean an equal advantage rs to les
sons, but cultivation outside of text
books which shall teach the scholars
that true principle of republic so