New-York tribune., 1883-06-17
"To PARENTS And GUARDIANS"

40 PARENTS And GUARDIANS"
In the college commandments wmch nlieu
nm last week one or two subjects were
brought prominently forward OF Importance
not only TO the young people and their iami-
lies. but to the country at large; for we must
remember that the condition of the country
twenty years hence will largely depend upon
this very education which we are now giving
TO these boys and girls.
One of these suggestive points of interest
was offered by the complaint of the family of
Johns Hopkins that the great university en-
dowed by their relative is not doing the work
which he intended, of educating the masses OF
moor young men, "The education" they say,
"giyen is the hghest-it Is too high. Ii
"seems to educate further already well-edu-
"cated post graduates Of other colleges. WIN
"forty-one professors and an income OF
q" S225. 600 we should be educating a thousand
" vonnc men instead of two hundred Pre-
cisely the same complaint might be made OF
one or two other important institutions rchly
endowed by large bcquests for the express pur-
nose of educating young men OF limited means
The course of study necessary To Obtain
diploma in some of these is 80 difficult as To
he simply impossible to boy OF ordinary
intellect: hence, out of freshman classes OF
seventy, four or five boys worry through, often
with broken health and exhausted energy.
Now. if the object of the men who endowed
these colleges was to send out yearly Few
highly educated scholars, this system is the
proper one but if it was to afford chance to
the mass of Young men for development and
usefulness this system completely thwarts
and makes it null.
The earnest protest Of the Vassar graduates
against the plan pursued in that college
bears upon a similar part OF our modern edu-
cational training. The protest was moderate
and strong in both meaning and language,
and deserves careful attention from every
parent. The author (who had herself won
the frat place in the graduating Qsass and was
therefore entitled to speak) urged that the
svsten of placing "Honors" at graduation
before the pupil at her entrance into school
"a the chief object of her endeavors
"induced a nervous strain Incompatible
"with her highest physical or mental
"development The system was not n correct
"index to either ability or industry; it led to
"superGcial work, done mainly with view to
gin high marks, and the motives for study
induced by it are unworthy ones" 1t is not
Vassar College alone to which this protest is
applicable; it might be urged in almost every
nublic and private school in the country. There
is hardly a thoughtful parent who does not
know that the object set before his boy and
girl at school is, not the gradual healthy de-
yelopment of their mental power and ability
for usefulness, but a certain number OF marks,
n high place in their class, some paltry dlstinc-
ton on graduating day. Pupils thus fail to
perceiye how utterly Fictitious and worthless
these successes are a week after they will leave
the school. The argument of the teacher Is
that the examination marks are test OF the
pupils proficiency. This is seldom correct.
They are a test of his verbal memory and
nbysical endurance. So wide is the range of
study required now even in primary schools
that nosling more can be done by the pupil
than to commit the textbooks to memory to
learn as it were the alphabet, the dictionary,
of each science, in the vain hope that
in after life he may learn to comprehend
it, to speak the language. Without entering
uron the vexed question of the higher educa-
tion for women, we may illustrate cur meaning
by the schedule of studies offered the other
dav TO women in Columbia College The
range of study in each branch consisted of
bald textbooks. compendiums, grammars.
What thoughtful woman, for example, in a
good library with one years quiet reading,
would not absorb an infinitely wider and truer
knowledge Of either history, language or litera-
ture than was included in this school curric-
| ulum for four years 1t is the letter that
kills in our whole present school system; the
spirit is needed to make alive.
1t is easy to understand how the mistake
has been made. Naturally each college has an
ambition to raise its standard. Each professor
| for his own regulations sake seeks to bring
mn his branch of study. Whether the boy
| has physical strength or mental capacity to
| bear the strain put upon him is not considered.
| II not. let him 20 out. The standard of work
| required is set by the capacity of the abnor-
mally gifted or toughest student. Now the fact
is that the mass of pupils in any school are not
particularly clever nor physically strong. But
they, too, have their place to ill in the world
and if they work faithfully at school to fit
themselves to fill it, it is unjust and cruel to
turn them out into it at the beginning of their
| career with a sense of defeat because Nature
| did not endow them as highly as a few of
their brethren. The TRIBUNE has called the
attention of colleges and teachers to this in
creasing and fatal error. 1t only echoes the