Daily Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1882-1893, 1888-07-17
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THE attempts into which we have fallen
during the government election are very
low" In the Pittsfeld, Mass, high
school the sentence reduced to, ''Redemp-
ton is in your own hands, and depends
upon no formal government nor love-"
In the senior class of another high school,
in which the average age Of the pupils
was IS years, the result was, "Our re-
demption for our destruction has nothing
TO do with u.s." In still another school
it was, Your distress into which you
have fallen is by no means the fault Of
government. A set of S-year-old pupils
reduced it to, ''The redemption that lies
in your hand is done;" and the first class
Of the high school in the same town made
it, "Your redemption into which you
have fallen is your own fault.
In one school the experiment was
modified; two pupils from each of five
grades were selected, and the sentence
clearly read aloud 10 them all. After a
minutes interval each Of the ten wrote
down what he could Of the sentence.
The sentences written by one pupil OF the
highest, one of the middle, and one OF
lowest grades were these: "Your re-
demption from the distress into which
you have fallen lies in your own hands,
and in nowise depends On the govern
ment or manner Of election" Your
redemption from the distress into which
you have fallen is in your own hands,
and depends in no wise upon the forms
of government or the modes Of election"
Your redemption and distress in which
you have fallen depends cn yourself,
and in no wise on the government or its
mode of election" Although not one Of
the ten got it perfectly accurate, yet
many were very neaH it; ana they all
show how much more the wear and tear
on the sentence is in passing through ten
mouths than through one. BY the other
process one accumulates the combined
inaccuracies Of all, and one pupil with
very poor receptive organ in the middle
of the ten prevents the circulation OF .
good repetition after him. After this
the sentence was passed through the ten
pupils arranged in order of grade, and
issued as, "Your redemption from the
distress into which you have fallen de-
, pends entirely upon yourself, and by no
means upon the forms of government or
helps from education"
The sentence here selected is quite
difficult one, but an easier one from En-
erson was hardly more successful. The
sentence was "All things are double, one
against another-tit for tat, an eye for
an eve, a tooth for a tooth, blood for
blood, measure for measure, love for
love"-and the result, "All things are
good for one another" Although the
test, as thus applied, is too complex TO
allow valid inferences to be drawn from
il, it at any rate shows how difficult it is
to repeat accurately what has been heard,
as well as how little confidence is to be
placed in the declarations of persons re-
porting the very few words of CONVEX
sation held weeks or months before; it
illustrates, too, in a simple form, the
process by which a simple tale becomes
an elaborately embellished narrative by
passing through several hands; and per-
haps it indicates that the powers of care
full attention and retention need more
systematic training than is devoted to
them in the ordinary school work.
Science.