Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-07-20
WHAT Is PRACTICAL EDUcATToss
Letter upon the Subject from Prominent
Sacramento Educator.

Letter upon the Subject from Prominent
Sacramento Educator.
EDS. RECORD UNION Every one familiar
with, or interested in, educational matters,
especially those pertaining to our common
school system, must have become i'm
pressed by the frequency with which this
system is assailed by the statement that its
education is not practical From all guar
tiers, both in the public press and in the
social circle, is this accusation made, until
the friends of our common schools are
forced to INQUIRE, Are these accusations
tfue?" In order to investigate the cues
ton fairly it is of course necessary to define
the term practical education. This. at a
glance, seems simple, and the deilnltlon-
that which may be put into use IN every
day life-will be accepted by ALL But fol-
lowing this comes the more searching in
terrogation, " Put into use by whom ?" and
in replying to this we say, in the language
of the immortal Bard of Avon, "Ay, there's
the rub"
To the architect practical education means
knowledge of geometry as applied to the
construction of buildings it means
knowledge of the kinds of shelter which
men have framed from the time they first
began to hew the shaft or lay the archi
traye," to the completion of the most per-
feet models of Greek architecture; from the
construction of an Indian wigwam to st.
Peters at Rome.
To the chemist practical education means
the power of taking the substances which
exist in the material universe and reducing
them by occult and subtle analysis to their
original elements. To the mineralogist
and geologist it means digging into the
bowels of the earth and reading On the
stone tablets of igneous and aqueous rocks
the history of creation. To the lawyer it
means a knowledge of Coke, Blackstone
and Chitty, and the history of civil law
from the creation to the present time. To
the historian and statesman it means
knowledge of events and the philosophy
of the hidden causes of the changes and
revolutions which have taken place in the
nations of the earth. To the journalist,
what does practical education not mean ?
To be thoroughly fitted for his work he
should be able t. rise to all nights, to sound
all depths; to be alike familiar with law,
science, philosophy, art, politics, religion
or amusement-to be in fact a living en-
cyclopedia of universal knowledge.
Thus we see by glancing at few of the
many vocations of life, that practical edu-
cation is not one thing, but many things,
or rather like the Kaleidoscope, which ex-
hibits q new phase whatever way it is
turned; or like a landscape, which pre-
sents different view from every new
standpoint.
is it not then, too much to expect of our
common schools that they should do the
work of Psychological Institutes? and that
those who go from them should be pos
sessed of socalled practical knowledge?
Are they not more like workshop in
which young apprentices are taughtto han
die the mental tools, which, with maturer
Judgment, they can use in such directions
as seem expedient and necessary?
And, again, would it be best. if it were
possible, to educate our children for spe-
cific pursuits? Could we know at the out
set that this one would be a lawyer, that
one carpenter, third a teacher, and so
on would we not succeed in turning out,
instead of symetrically-molded minds, all
of whose faculties had been trained mere
developed only in one direc-
ton, and consequently without sympathy
for those without the pale of their distorted
ideas of practical education
Is 1t not then better, instead of condemn
ing system which has done so much to-
ward elevating our country to the exalted
position which she occupies among the ma
tons OF the earth, to compare the intellect
ual condition of the masses of the United
States with those of any other great nation,
which does now exist, or which has ex-
listed in The past, and give at least part of
the credit where it belongs, to our glorious
and benehcent system of common schools?