Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1883-12-29
USELESS KNOWLEDGE.
From the No. School journal; by L. B

| From the Mo. School journal; by L.
| Coates.
To know the number of shingles on
every house in St. Louis or the number
of leaves on every tree in the forest, is
of course knowledge; but wholly USE
less knowledge. Furthermore, to
know the population of every small
town on the globe, to know how to
spell words which will never be met
i'll after life, is not only useless knowl-
edge, but forcing this on the child's
mind cheats it out of much valuable
knowledge which our schools should
give. While visiting school last
spring had the pleasure efexamining
class in primary arithmetic. Most of the
class could repeat the table readily. but
when told them to draw line on the
board one foot in length, some drew
a line six inches long and some a line
two feet long. One boy said
peck measure was about the size of a
half bushel. This lack OF practical
knowledge was the result of erroneous
teaching. Had these pupils been
taught to use foot measure, a peck
measure, gallon measure, to step OIL
an acre of land, their judgment in bus
mess life would be much better. In
course of time children get tolerably
correct ideas of these, but why should
we teach them useless knowledge and
wait for them to discover that which is
useful? The higher grade of pupils are
subject to the same erroneous methods.
1t would be no greater folly to teach
the baby, that has not yet learned the
name OF chair, a tree, or a horse, the
multiplication table, than it is to teach
older pupils all about the sun moon and
stars, depth of ocean, height OF
mountains, Kilograms, etc., when they
have not been taught to write plain
promissory note, nor to count up the
interest OH one.
Some pupils know more of Australia
than of Missouri, more of foreign ex-
change than Of simple interest, more of
Latin phrases than of words used in
business life. Some pupils are not sat
isfied till they are studying about x, y
z in algebra, or experimental figures in
teachers yield to the pressure; and at
the same time neither of these pupils
has studied the physiology of the human
body sufficiently to stop the bleeding
of an artery, should one be severed.
| AhS uucAhOcb oAbilo VI liiC dIC uVI COu.
Quoted at ocean depths, on mountain
tops,or among the stars, but as Edward
Everett says, ''To read the English Ian
guage well, to write with dispatch q
neat legible hand and to be master OF
the first four rules of arithmetic, SO as
to dispose of, with accuracy, every
question of figures which comes up in
practice, to be able to write pure gram
NAUTICAL English, is an excellent educa-
ton.
1 believe all thorough business men
will agree with me when say that part
OF our education which is really useful
in business life was acquired after our
school days, and that it took many
bumps, losses and failures to give us an
education that is really useful. There
see msto be a great gulf between school
life and business life; the one is not q
preparation for the other. For these
and many other reasons we are forced to
conclude that much of the knowledge
acquired i'll the schools of to day, is no,
only useless, but it serves as finger
board on the educational highway te
lead us from that which is useful, inter
esting and enlightening.