Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-01-02
EDUCATIONAL.
Sensible Training Necessary to Induce the
Rising Generation of Boys to go
to School.
The Worth of a College Education to a
Young Man.-Public Opinion on
Educational Topics.
Children at Work.

Children at Work.
Children are possessed with a desire
to get out of school and 90 to work. 1t
is not that they are so industriouslv in
clined. neither is it because they are
anxious to add to the home exchequer,
nor because the parents need or desire
their assistance. Why is it, then, that
by far the larger number of the boys,
and many of the girls, leave school by
the time they are twelve or thirteen
years Of age, and 60 into the shops and
stores, working twice as many hours
as they would attend school, and work
ing ten more weeks in a year? There
is a fascination in the shop that is not
found in the school. This is all wrong.
There is no reason for it in theory, and
yet the fact remains, and we must face
the conditions as they are rather than
imaginary conditions such as we wish
they were.
The Journal of Education, says: If
there is anything in the methods. tend
%encies, or adjustments of the school
that makes it repuisive to a large class
of boys when they pass from childhood
to boyhood or youth, it must be radi-
cally and speedily changed. There
are few school problems in America to-
day so vital as that which relates to
youths from twelve to sixteen. 1t is a
great grief to most parents that their
boys so early seek relief from school
duties. If the home had the nerve it
once had to say that children should
remain at school till the age of sixteen,
or if the State had the courage to say
that they should not work under that
age unless they had a passable educa-
ton, it would entirely change the con-
ditions; but the home will not keep
them in school, and the State will not
place any barriers to shop life after the
child is thirteen.
All that is done for youth must be
done by the school in retaining them,
as well as in benefiting them when re-
tanned. What is the fascination of the
shop? What is the lack of fascination
in the school? The boy at thirteen or
fourteen years of age enters manhood.
He sheds the characteristics of child
hood. He has been an interrogation
mark in perpetual motion, and all at
one he becomes an exclamation mark
in perpetual motion. He has been
hungry for information; now he is
effervescent with information to be i'm
parted. The shop treats him as a COM
ing man; the school, as a young child.
The shop caters to his independence;
the school emphasizes his dependence.
The shop magnities what he knows; the
school, what he does not know. The
shop calls him a man; the school, a boy.
We know that this characterization
is not universally correct, but it out
lines the tendencies. The school must
recognize its dangers in these direc-
tions, and seek to dignity its treatment
of youth in such a way as to win the
respect, retain the interest, secure the
loyalty of the boys. There are other
and social shop tendencies, to which
we may refer at another time, but now
we wish merely to urge upon the teach
ers of the second and third classes of
the grammar school (reckoning from
the top that they say and do as little
as possible to magnify the ignorance of
growing boys, and all they can to show
an appreciation of the manliness, indie
pendence, and good ems of the over
grown boy. High per cents, rapidity
in processes, elegance in use of Ian
guage, are of little account as compared
with the confidence, interest, and abid-
ing loyalty of the pupils in these class
es. Keep the boys out of the shop I'M
til they are eighteen by keeping them
in school, not by law, but by good
sense and intelligent appreciation of
what they are by nature and what they
may be by sensible training.
The Worth of a College Education.
Years ago, in a very profound fresh
man discussion, where several young
men were looking at the subject of the
advantages of college education, one of
the d~isputants said No, the best worth
was not knowledge, but the discipline
it secured. Judging them by their
record, some students take away from
college very little discipline, and less
knowledge. However, the above opinion
has much weight. College students do
acquire, or ought to acquire, habits of
study, and learn how to study to the
best advantage. Another result is the
bringing of young men,-and we are
glad to say, nowadays young women
also,-under the influence of the most
largely gifted and most highly Guilt
waited minds. Add character to culture,
and who shall set boundaries to and
fence in the influence thereof?
At the funeral of Preseason Upham,
of Bowdoin College, was present Presi-
dent Allen, Girard College. Allen had
been a Bowdoin, and had come under
the influence of Upham, and always
felt that to his college professor was
due the inception of his religious life.
Rev. DR.. Deems, of the "Church of the
Strangers New York, was also pres
ent. He was asked if he knew Presi-
dent Allen. His ready response was,
HE made me-" This comment has
been written on these facts: pro
fessor Upham was in some meas
ure the making of president
Allen. President Allen, speaking
after the manner of men, made DR..
Deems" This making of men, this
bringing of character, moral and men,
tai, into finer proportions, is n re-
suit of the intercourse of professor and
student. [ have sometimes queried
whether it may not be the greatest of
all college advantages.
The same thing, though, may be as
serted of all grades of schools. The
boy in a grammar school, under a
teacher of exact scholarship, of large
intellectual ambition, and of decided
and manly character, will take from
him something more than so much
grammar, so much geography, so much
arithmetic. Much of these gains may
get away from the pupil, but he will
never get away from the influence OF
that teacher. Looking back, he will