Wichita eagle., 1888-04-05
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
Observation-Disclosures of Object Les

Been Elevated-The Part Played by
Observation-Disclosures of Object Les
sons.
1t is curious thing that, side by side with
the modern amenities in schooling, there
sometimes comes in q reaction against every
| thing that can make learning attractive. 1t
is like the theory which used to exist. that
no drug could be really useful unless it gave
out the full terrors of its natural taste and
odor. Sometimes even now, in out of the
way places, one finds an old fashioned drug
shop perhaps opening out of the very parlor
of an Old fashioned doctor), where the mere
atmosphere is as barbarous and forbidding
as the strange foreign names of the articles
sold there-coloquintida perhaps, or ipecac-
uanha. But the modern drug shop is called
pharmacy, and it aims to replace those
vigorous old odors with others suggestive Of
Araby the Blest.
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-
tenn Why contend against it: it was asked:
boys We're natural barbarians and would
soon make the new look as badly as the old.
ct about that time the discovery was made
that the way to secure respect for school fur
nlture was to make it respectable, and the
boyish jackknife found other objects. So /
can remember when the introduction of
singing, and later of drawing, into our pub
lie schools was regarded as finical whim,
suitable for girls school only Emollit
moreS; each of these practices is found to
help school discipline and refine the taste. so
that the whole tone of school life is elevated
l was fitted for college by teacher who
never let his rattan 60 out of his hand except
to lay it on his desk close by him. A public
school principal who should now pursue this
course would lose his place, and rightly: the
very regulations of some communities re-
qulre that the rod, it if exists, SHOULD be kent
in the desk, out of sight, and that every blow
should be afterward reported to the proper
authorities
One of the most curious forms of this Grad
grind severity is the crusade occasionally
undertaken against all illustrations of school
books. The most thoughtful and carefully
designed work, in geography, in history, even
in arithmetic, is supposed to be sufficiently
condemned when il is called picture book.
Yet it is period when all works for older
persons-dic encyclopedias. histo-
ries, magazines-have brought the art of
pictorial illustrations TO its highest point
Webster and Worcester have alike adopted
it. Justin WInsor'S monumental Narrative
and Critical History of America is crowded
with portraits, autographs, fac similes, and
of historic pictures The later
editions of Gray'S Botany of the Northern |
United States" have careful delinestions of |
hs al
zines have won the admiration of the world |
by their Illustrations of all geographical and |
historical papers.
MIR. Edward Atkinson carried the art cf |
pictorial exhibition even into political econ |
omy, and Is never quite happy I'LL be can get
us proposition embodied for the eve in |
parallel Lines. The United States census re-
port resorts TO charts and curves and colored |
tlasraIns when 1t wishes fully TO elucidate
my important general result All this is
lone for grown people-for the gravest, the
llaturest. the most educated They, If any,
Are the persons who might fairly be asked ~
TX their minds clearly and austeTely urn1
words and numerals, without stopping 70 the
alleged frivolity of picture books. Ii thew
10 not accomplish this, if the very peopla
who make the criticism are only too glad 70
Ike out their own imperfect knowledge hy an
Illustrated magazine OF an ILLUSTRATED, die
ionary, is it not little absurd in them n
'nforce such a grim abstinence upon school
'hilGrenl
in an admirable article by the eminent
french writer Professor Th Ribot on .sTho
Mechanism of Attention" he rnaintains .
hnerent theory. The infant child. he savS
5 az first under the sway Of spontaneous at
entIon alone, noticing only bright objects n,
giving objects. By degrees il Oh
erves things less seitishly interesting. berin.
ing at about the third month The patb !.
rom the most intense. most impressive senSa.