The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-06-10
How the Present High Standards Have Been
Developed from the Crude and Confined
Methods of the Academies of Greece.
AnInstructiye Display, in Which France
Easily Leads All Other Countries,
And in Which Even Pagan Japan Shows More
Progress in Certain Lines than the Linz
tied Exhibits of America and Britain.
PROGRESS IN EDUCATION.
What Is Seen by q Look at the School
hibits at the Paris Show.

in the Paris exhibition demonstrates
clearly that a new era is firmly established
in the thought of the world concerning the
means, methods and objects of schooling.
The evolution in education has been from
the minority in the highest social plane
toward the majority in the lowest social
plane. AS it has proceeded, the standards
have been subjected to a revolution, COM
plere, and, without doubt, permanent. The
models of the academies of Greece, with
their abstract disputations, served the lit
tie circle of rejecting mankind until the in
vention of printing The industry of Sc
cluded students. and the zeal of enthusi-
astic copyists preserved the texts which
constitute for all ages the foun-
datiOns of culture. but their null
tiplication by machines did not for two
centuries seriously affect the conventional
procedure of training few of the every
thousand for the duties appertaining to pro-
fessors of sacred and profane learning, who,
in turn. passed few others in each thousand
along the beaten paths of Hellenic and Ro-
man authors, and presented them upon the
threshold of metaphysics, which few crossed
except for proftless wrangling. The idea
of including within the scope of education
later ages, when the daring of the sailor
and the tread of armies brought the dis
tributed races face to face. Democracy and
commerce, and the slowly operating spirit
of Christianity, which they have in part an
tagonized. and in part promoted. combine
in our own time to establish a new order.
total Akfapamant anf1nnQfa6
and exclusive privilege of higher culture
is shown in every portion of the exposition.
Higher obstruction there is preserving the
literature ~ but the new W epoch, while cher
ishing these works, has different as well
as q Complementary means of developing
intelligence. 1t is resolved that creation
shall accompany reflection. 1t is not mere
ly literary, it is industrial. 1t is not SOLE
ly for the refinement of the minority; it is
for the good Of the entire people. Its most
beneficent quality is its devotion to beau
ty and truth. While aggrandizing the ma
terial and recognizing. the fact that edu-
cation. like liberty, is universal right
as we'll as a universal prudence, the
principle Of the new epoch is that thought
shall be turned into skill. This may not be
the nOblest idea of culture. 1t is doubtless
more sublime to write great poem than to
discover a secret in chemistry, to construct
perfect machine, or to furnish textile
manufacturers with more distinguished
cOlors and richer designs. The question of
the time is not how TO immortalize rare
spirits, but how to render life happier, more
rejecting and more virtuous for the great
body of people, to whom the arts and
trades are indispensable in modern ages as
was the meditation of old to the mobiles or
pOmp to the. privileged participators in
is past Socrates's contempt for initiative
arts has been smiled into practical philoso-
phE.
The French educational exhibit presents
this revolution in education with remark
able cOmprehenslveness. The first country
TO cast off traditional exclusive literary
training, it's pre-eminence in fine industrial
art, and its monopoly of the most profitable
industries into which design enters are ex-
of the entire school olsystem of Paris, seventy
of the eighty-seven departments of the re-
public have respective places in the educa-
tional building. The exhibit is, under
manifo Id auspices, manifesting the cease
system finds augmentation through benev-
Olent societies. through municipal and
communal organization, and through pri-
vate enterprise, but whatever the form of
administration the process and principles
are identical. Mind training, beginning with
the primary grades and passing up through
high-schOols into colleges and universities,
is constantly accompanied with the train
ing of the eye and the land throughout all
the sciences anu all tUc arts. ue eXnlD1b,
ramitied through every division with in
ventive, decorative and constructive in
dustry, is a school where all nations may
study with advantage. Were Germany
represented. the efficaciousness of this ra-
tional combination of literary with execu-
tive, for the education of the people in
thrift and thought. would be not less clear
ly demonstrated. That it will become the
code of the most enlightened progressive
and conservative nations of Europe is ap-
in hn wi oh dos
the various international contributions.
Belgium, combining in her economic char
acter the greatest density of population
with the largest diversity of occupation,
and the most uniform distribution of wealth
with the minimum of pauperism, ranks
after France. Closely following her are
Holland and Switzerland. Abreast of them
are the French colonies in Asia, Oceanica
and Africa.
colonial sections. They are not in the ex-
position building proper, but in structures
illustrating the aboriginal architecture of
Oriental peoples. along the Esplanade des
Invalides.. In the composition of their con-
tents primitive antiquity is side
by side with the most refined evil
dences of modern subtility in
education. The surprise is, however
Furnishes! by Japan. Nothing more deli
can be imagined than the kindergarten
work of japanese children. The venerable
Elizabeth Peabody, who introduced Free
bePs system in the United States, has not
lived long enough to see American children
as happily occupied, in proportion to their
numbers, as is the little world of the pre-
sumably benighted East. The ACCOMPANY
ing statistics show that there are nearly
three million children and seventy thousand
teachers in the elementary schools in Ja-
pam The exhibit presents a view of the en-
tire system, from the kindergarten up to
the university, and is as scientific and or
derly the system of France. Particu-
larry important is the work shown by
Japanese schools for the blind and for
deaf mutes. relief alphabet and various
series of models are In use. In the former
the letters are In impressed paper. and are
beautifully reproduced in wood by the pu>,
pills. They have also relief apparatrr
combining syllables on the principle of the
wood method in vogue in our primary in-
struction. and which was borrowed from
the Germans. The skill 6f the deaf mutes
In wOod-carving, painting, modelling in
clay. and In designing for ceramics, textiles
and iron, is almost phenomenal.
The British and American exhibits are
disappointments. Their scantiness and rel
ative inferiority are due to the obvious fact
that English-speaking nations have longest
adhered to all but exclusive literary in
struction, which is fossil remniscence OF
rejected pedagogy. Great Britain, which
was the last of all enlightened countries
TO establish national educational
system by taxation. il reluctant about it,