Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-11-15

upon methods, mental and physical, and
made teaching the repository of greater
knowledge and greater skill than was
possible under the earlier unsystematized
and independent regime. That this is
capable of demonstration handy need be
said nor will we pause to elaborate so
manifest 4 truth as the superiority of
modern teaching in the common schools.
But the second loss to which Mr.. Hale
refers is of very different character. 1t
regards the ultra side of our methods and
we confess to feeling the force and, in a
large degree, confessing the truth of the
essayist's criticism. 1t relates wholly 10
school hours-the teaching from books
and the lack of teaching of things prac-
teal. He holds, in brief, that the wiser
policy is to confine cur children in school
but half the day, and TO devote the remain
ing half day to teaching them at home of
the practical affairs of life. Fifty years
ago lad must know the use OF his hands
and feet; must know what a bushel of
wheat was, how a horse is shod, how to
cord wood, the methods of the town meet
ing, how to milk. to pillow, to grease an
axle, TO drive, to harness a horse, to spade
a garden, to drive a nail or set screw, and
thousand other things not taught in
school. A girl had then to know how to
make and mend her own clothing, to repair
that of her brothers; how to clear-starch,
to roast, to boil, to iron; how to tear a
bandage and how to pat it on. In many
cases both must know how to cut up hog
and salt and smoke its members, to preserve
| fruits and vegetables, etc All these things
were taught in times reserved from the
| school. Thus, they had a winter and
summer term of school, with long lapses
| between. Now, we magnify too much the
| Importance of the school-roOm, and yield
only to such closure of it as nature de-
mands absolutely for physical well-being.
50 we have the steady grind of school
| through the year, with permanent teachers
| and permanent registry. At the end of a
generation we discover that our children
have no knowledge of tools no ability
with their hands, and very little knowl-
edge of practical life. 1t is stated as a
statistical fact that the average age at which
boys are Withdrawn from school is twelve
and half years in large cities. They are
Withdrawn 10 learn the practical things of
life not possible to be taught in the schools,
and to learn these things in labor for the
benefit Of their parents. To this fact DR..
Hale attributes the rapid enlargement of
the hoodIum class in cities, but we are
not ready to concede that much to him
yet.
The educators realize the failure Of the
practical side of our system. and seek to
remedy it by school methods. Thus it
comes that we are constantly adding some
thing to the school course. In one case it
is sewing, in another mechanical exercise
with tools, in another the use of machinery.
Finding the necessity for it, the boys are
taught by object lessons to know wheat
from barley and oats from rye, and the
girls it is now urged must be taught at
school TO broil beefsteak and make bread.
and rooms are provided, and pupils taught
to makeup beds, to sweep. to dust and
'set to rights All these things overload
the school courses they ovcrtask the
child; they make the schools patent pana-
ceas for social mistakes 1t needs no argu-
ment to convince anyone that all these
things are better taught at home in the
store, office or workshop of the parent
that a thousand things are to be learned III
,he latter places impossible to be taught at
school. DR.. Hale cites the experience OF
Nj Stanley Hall, who carried investigation
sufficiently far III Boston to prove that Il
considerable number of pupils III one OF
the best schools of that city thought that
COW was less than three inches long.
Such is the result of using primer in
which the picture of COW is as small as
the picture Of gimlet. The knowledge Of
common things is not best obtained in
school The practical father knows that
his son who learns outdoor work ont of
doors. is better taught and more useful to
aim than the son who learns his outdoor
work indoors. Now the remedy for these
evils is the half-timc system, which is the
nearest approach possible to the three
months winter and summer school of old |
Take the hoy out half the day and let him
90 to the counter and learn to weigh and
tie parcels; to tie bench and learn how to
use tools to the shop and mill and aid his
father; to the garden with the spade, to the
stable with the horse, to The field with the
pillow. To his home where true domestic arts
are to be learned that must be accom-
plished to lit him for household OF his
own. So with the girl, half-time at home
and half al school will better tit her both
for school and life The statistics show
that the schools operating under the half
day system make a. good a showing as
those under thc Nhole-dey system, IS to !
actual results.
We cmphatically indorsc Dr. Hale's
statement thai The attempt to give a
knowledge Of things or The process Of
haI,Iiwork made at school. cannot succeed
BY ,iling up the studies we are Weakening
the intellectual side and doing pupils per-
manent injury. We know that in this city
she pressure IS such that pupils very largely
are forced to hard study in hours that
shonld be socially devoted to physical exer-
else or rest We do not believe that we are
progressing by this multiplication of school
tasks Given, a halftimc system, with half
the studies, and the pupils in school until
Is and 10, rather than their examining and
Withdrawal before they reach the age of
thirteen rs DR. Hale puts it: Children
are sent to school not to learn facts, but To
learn how to learn them. But in the mod
crn system the teacher is compelled opour
in avalanche after avalanche of facts.
though heknows that they destroy, in their
progress, the careful roadways that he has
been building"
Another point against the whole-day
system is made in the suggestion that it
takes boys and girls out from the working
force of the world, land teaches them, in
effect. that they are the children of God and
have nothing to do for the world in which
they live" Home and society are SO