River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1889-03-28
e
SUPERFIuOUS STUDIES.
How Much Time and strength are Wasted
in American schools.

How Much Time and strength are Wasted
in American schools.
There is really an amazingly wide
difference between what passes cur
rently for knowledge, and educational
schemes are apt to be valuable or
worthless in direct proportion to the
extent to which they take this fact in
/ to account. Whoever has considered
the subject must have been struck
with the vast amount of material which
| goes TO make up our curriculums,
which is the most worthless of rub
/ bish from an educational stand point.
/ and which were better eliminated.
/ There are few branches taught in our
public schools to-day which could not
advantageously be weeded pretty OK
tensiyely, and in not a few instances it
would be found. after the wedding was
done. that not a great deal remained.
The commonest form Of superhuities
in the branches commonly pursued is
| that of details, which would be of some
value if the study were carried far
enough, but which are absolutely val
ueless as it is. The names and places
/ of the consultations are useful and
valuable as n matter of celestial geo.
/ graphy to those who follow the study
far enough really to need such aids in
/ locating the heavenly bodies, but OF
what earthly use, interest, or value is
it to the ordinary scholar? Beyond a
general knowledge of the half a dozen
consultations which have by name a
/ place in literature the pupil does not
even derive any satisfaction. even the
most superficial. from the laboriously-
I learned and easily-forgctten string Of
names which makes up so large a pOr-
/ tiou of the contents of most textbooks
on astronomy. The student who
/ passes days, weeks and months in that
/ busy idleuess known as "analyzingn
to a pleasant and strictly moral
form of amusement, but the
mind would have been as well
exercised. the results would have
been as valuable, and the process quite
as pleasant and moral had the same
labor been expended in solving the en-
I igmas and riddles OF the puzzle de-
partment of Juvenile magazine. The
chief difference would be that in one
/ case the learner might feel the distaste
arising from a forced task. and in that
case the odds would be in favor or the
riddle-guessing, wherein the mind
would act freely and spontaneously.
The principle of modern education is
apparently to take the least possible
quantity of knowledge. mix it with the
largest possible quantity of superfuous
/ matter. and then force it into the stu
dents brain by machinery. OF course.
that the information actually acquired
in a given branch of study is not to be
I put 10 practical use is not in itself
proof that the course pursued is use
/ less. since the mental training and dis
! cipline gained may be the end sought.
But this applies only to reasoning
I processes. and not to the dry accunu-
/ lation of facts. the committing to men,
ory Of more or less elaborate trihes
which have no significance or use to
/ the mind. In the end. the mind re-
tains only the significant but why
should it waste so much valuable time
and strength in acquiring the super
fuous only to forget it? = Boston
Courier