The Dickinson press., 1888-02-25
SCHOOLS OF TODAY.
THE CHANGE WHICH HAS COME
OVER OUR METHODS.

How the Whole Tone of School Life Has
Been Elevated-The Part Played by
Decentralization of Object Les
sons.
II is Il curious thing that, side 10y side with
the modern amenities i'll schooling, there
sometimes comes i'll Il reaction against every
thin! that can make learning attractive. 1t
is like the theory which used to exist, that
no drag could hc really useful unless it gave
out the full tcrrois of its natural taste and
olor. Sometimes even now. in out of the
WY places, one finds an old fashioned drug
shop narpals opening ont of the very parlor
OF an Old fashioned DOCTOR, where the mere
atmosphere is rs iarlmrouS and forbidding
as the strange foreign names of the articles
sold ticrc-colouuinti,la. perhaps. or ipecuc-
ual.lia. But the modern drug shop is called
i; pharmacy, and ii aims to replace those
vigorous old olors with others suggestive of
.tl;iby the Blcst.
y similar change has come over our school
methods. can recall when battered desks
and chopped benches were regarded as an
essential part of even the private school Sys-
TEN. Why contend against it. it was asked;
boys were natural Larl,arians and would
soon make the new look as badly rs the old.
Net about that time the discovery was made
that the way to secure respect for school fur
niturc was to make it respectable, and the
loyisil ijackknife found other objects. SO l
can remember when the Introduction of
singing. and later OF drawing, into on pub
Ii. school, WAS regarded as tinical whim,
suitable for girls school only. Enollit
nl"i,s: r;;cIl of these practices is found to
help school discipline and refine the taste, so
| thai the whole tone of school life is elevated.
| was fitted for college by Il teacher who
| never let his rattan go out of his han except
to lay it on his desk close by him. \. public
school principal WHO should now pursue this
| course would lose his place, and rightly; the
| Very regulations of some communities re-
luiic that the rod, it ii exists, should he kept
i'll the desk, out of sight. and that every blow
should he aftcrward reported to the proper
authorities.
One nf the most curious forms of this Grad
-gilnl severity i, tho crusade occasionally
anlcrtakrn against all illustrations of school
books. The most thoughtful and carefully
designed work. in geography, in history. even
in arithmetic, is supposed to he sufficiently
condemned when it is called II picture book.
Net it is Il period when all works for older
ln4suns-tlicti"naries, encyclopedias, histo-
ii'N. IlIlSttIlIltN ouS XIV WI vi
pictorial Illustrations to its highest point.
Webster and Worcester have alike adopted
It. Justin Willsor's monumental "Narlative
and Critical History of America is crowded
with portraits, autographs, fac-similes. and
reproductions of historic pictures. The later
editions of t;lay's BOTANY of the Northern
,'nilr,l States have careful lclinnations of
Very historical genus. The American maya
:i!iv> have won the admiration of the world
~ their illustrations of ull geographical and
historical lalcrs.
Mr.. Edward Atkinson carried the art OF
pictorial exhibition even into political eron-
my, and is never quite happy till he can get
Ais proposition embodied for the eye in
".,ara,lel lines. The United States census rc-
.l"rt resorts to charts and curves and colorea
diagrams when it wishes fully to eluridate
any important general result. All this is
lone for grown pcopl"-for the gravrst, the
lnatlrcst, the most educated. They, if amy,
are the persons who might fairly be asked to
lis their minds clearly and uustercly upon
words and numerals, without stopping tn the
alleged ~frivolity of picture hooks. III they
do MT accomplish This, if the very people
| who make the criticism are only too glad to
exc olt their w imperfect knowledge hy an
Illustrated magazine or an illustrated die
tioliai'y, is it not q little absurd in them to
| enforce such q grim abstinence upon school
Children?
In an admirable article by the eminent
French writer Professor Til. Itibut on ''The
-~!oci!hilism of Attention. he maintains u
| different theory. The infant child. he says,
is ut first under the sway of spontaneous at
tontion alonc, noticing only bright objects or
stlstei,ance giving objects. BY degrees it OBJ
series things less sellshiy interesting, begin
Ming at about the third month. The path ia
1roln the most intense. most impressive senSa-
tons, to the finer and more delicate ones. To
fix ANIL hold one sensation is an art that
must he learned. "a child, for example,
refuses to learn TO read, but is vastly inter-
ested in the pictures in the book. The father
says that reading will show the meaning Of
the pictures. This acts as an artificial i,-
durenent, and the child goes to work. sub
shutting an artificial attention to arbitrary
Signs for the natural attractivciess of pict-
ures.n After Il while ''art has done it's
work, and attention has become second ma
ture." All this is long since recognized in
our schools ill the introduction of object les.
sons. Formerly pupils learned q definition
of Il bird: then they were taught something
about q birds structure; after that, if they
hNiR AiAl II Y AnN W sSS swim
stuffed birds in Il museum. Now the stuffed
bird, or better still, Il living one, is /; part of
the school properties; that is shown first, and
when curiosity is aroused the children
readily learn about it. But as no school can
have annexed to it q complete museum of
natural history, geography and the history
of the human race, the pictorial art comes in
by way of substitute or preliminary.
N child can understand from words alone
that there is any part OF the world which is
essentially different from his native town,
hut his first picture of a glacier or n gcyser
q castle or u cathedral, the sphinx of Egypt
or the Espuimau i'll his kayak, opens his eye:
to the rest of the globe; he begins to be {
man. 1t is even more true of history; The
most sl,illful combination Of words can never
bring q child so near the mound builders o.
the Pueblo Indians, to the puritans OF thu
cavaliers, TO the revolutionary soldiers an,
the founders of our government, as he i
brought by the first good picture he SEES
IT. w. H. i'll Harper's BazaI..