Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1885-12-31
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Methods are the Best.
In the NineteenM Century Prof. seelye
says; II often happens in life that the
more actively we bestir ourselves the
more we find to do-that, In short, the
more we accomplish the further We find
ourselves removed from the completion
of our task. We set up the ex-
animation system, we extended IL over
the whole country, we took infinite pains
TO make the competition free and fair, to
bring all the prizes, the scholarships and
the fellowships for which the candidates
entered open without exclusiveness.
Little now remains to be done in this
direction. Well, what do we think Of
the resultp Is this machine so decidedly
better than the other think few per-
sons will say 30. Emulation turns out to
be q rude and coarse motive competi-
ton proves TO be an exhausting, un-
healthy process. It is complained
that those who have been
trimmed under this system imbibe
low views of culture, that this sort
of education has disappointing results,
and can scarcely be called liberal. How
much was said of the narrowness of the
old classical curriculum How much was
expected from the introduction Of new
subjects, natural science, English history,
modern languages Here again / fancy
found that too much is attempted, that
one subject drives another out of the
mind. that the old standard of thorough
ness cannot be kept up. And again, it is
found how subtle thing the human mind
-. IaN. aw.
These profoundly interesting subjects,
30 full of life, 30 evidently useful as we'll
as fascinating, which we thought could
not fail to rouse the dullest intellect, are
often found to have another effect. They
are TO potent They destroy the individu-
atty and fresh activity of thought, all the
healthy waywardness and willfulness,
which is only vigor in its crudeness,
originality in the embryo. Often, too,
by being forced upon the mind too soon
and, too quickly, and too many at time,
they leave 1t not inspired and awakened,
but listless, satiated and disguised. When
this too-much in the subject-matter of
teaching is added to the competitive
method and the stimulus of examination,
the total result is often very exhausting
and enfeebling.
Classics are in possession of the field !;
first of oil this study needs to be made
more living, more real, less pedantic and
technical. Science comes next. Really
boys must learn to understand something
of the world they live in, must form the
habit of observation, must enter into
those wonderful discoveries which crowd
upon US with such pitiless speed that, even
If we studied nothing else, we should
have neither time nor faculty enough to
receive them. Suppose these claims salts
fed, though in fact we do not know how
to satisfy them. What comes next ? It is
really too scandalous that our boys
should grow up in ignorance of the
literature of their own country !
Yet it is to be feared that there
are too many who do not properly know
even Milton and Shakespeare. Still more
deplorably large is the number of those
who do not know what wealth is TO be
found in Ohaucer, or who have never felt
the scholars pleasure of tracing the
growth of the language through all its
stages, of distinguishing middle English,
and then ascending to that old English
which our benighted forefathers called
Anglo-Saxon. Well, let English, too, be
granted. What next? Then, perhaps,
may come history-ancient, medieval,
modern, all together, md all equally, for
is not history one? You see, each of
these studies by itself is vast, and of our
unfortunate boys all we know is that
hitherto, while we have required them to
learn only Latin and Greek, nine out of
ten have always failed to accomplish even
that.