The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-21

one OF the medical colleges (of which
there are a half-dozen in the attics of every
western city of a hundred thousand people),
and get nj a diploma by ten months study
and a cost of five hundred dollars" Thus the
youth soliloquizes, and the strangest part of it
is that hard handed and hard working parents
accede, and foot the bills for a professional
education. ri have no education; 1 have
worked all my life and fourteen hours a day,
and my children shall be gentlemen and
ladies" says the parent. And so we have in
our cities the clerical and professional bust
nesses overcrowded; lawyers hanging on by
the eyebrows, and a score of physicians where
one could do the work. The clerks, doctors
and attorneys are in each others way. The
fault is with parents and public opinion as
much or more than with the schools.
To correct this evil, so far as the schools
have it in their power, Mr.. Flatt proposes
that Greek and Latin be dropped out of high
schools, and turned over to the department of
specialties, in company with ancient and
oriental literature, hieroglyphics, ca~tacombs,
and other studies of limited application, or
belonging to the dead past, and let the schools
turn their attention to the present, living
world, Let all languages except our own,
ancient Or modern, be relegated to the uni
versity, or be paid for by those who wish to
pursue them. Let us have a national educa-
ton, adapted to the new conditions which are
arising in the earth, and to the type of gov
eminent we are ~propagating IN this CONT
nent." Mr.. Flats remedy for wedding out
the classes who know too much to earn an
honest living by manual labor is radical as
regards the schools. 1t cuts to the core. 1t
is, to be sure, tough on the old-timers whose
~pedagogic ideas are founded on the models of
the past, and are of the time when Oxford
had 30, 900 students gathered from all Europe,
and all studying in Latin, which was then the
universal language of science, literature and
instruction.
If the people of our cities wish their chill
dren under sixteen years to learn the grammar
forms of Greek, Latin and modern languages,
they have the warrant of long custom to do
so. In Difference to those who wish their
children to have a fair knowlege of English
language, English customs, and English his
tory, and modern arts and sciences, let them
seek these accomplishments in private schools
and at their own expense, Life is too short
and taxes .are too high in cities for a few to
have these privileges" at the expense of the
many. Our public school system did not con
template these subjects-with as many more
which might be mentioned. They are
hangers-on and impediments to the general
cause of public education, which is by the
public moneys and for the public good. We
don't know what kind of a wild, uncultured,
whooping, Western educational cowboy this
Mr.. Flatt, of the California State Normal
school is, but he evidently reads the papers
and is on the right track. He is a good ways
from Boston, which, pedogogically speaking,
is "agin" him. Mr.. Adams sent as far west
as Toledo, O., to get an old army officer and
man of affairs to wrest the Quincy school sys-
tenn from the ruts of examining the memory
for stated COMMUNICATION the system Of
per cents. and the slough of ignorance. If
this Mr.. Flatt is teaching the normal school
pupils after the manner of his article in the
Chicago Schoolmaster, We may look to the
West to apply the same modern methods in
education that have brought so rapidly to the
front their business and pecuniary interests.