The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-08-15
ROYAL ROADS TO KNOWLEDGE.
New Educational Methods Which Tend to
Make Learning Easier.

Make Learning Easier.
The expression, There is no royal
road to knowledge" has been used SO
often that it seems to have become al
most an axiom; but in view of the
much-improveds system OF education and
the wonderful advances in the manner
and style of helps to learning, the eX-
preston seems likely 20 go out of use,
at least in its broadcast sense.
With the remarlks DIV interesting
textbooks now provided, in some Of
which information is impaired in style
as fascinating as fairy tale, and with
the thousand and one simpiified meth
DDS, we can but admit that while one
must of necessity study, and study
hard, in order to acquire knowledge.
the same amount of application as was
formerly necessary viii put one in pos
session of a much wider range of facts
and in much more comprehensive
fashion than was possible under the old
regime.
Under the improved system, a stu
dent may read himself into wisdom,
and that, too, in a most pleasing and
attractive manner. In view of all
this, one can but wonder at the folly
of clinging to the old-style textbooks
and following the old-line methods, as
is sometimes done. Time is too valua-
BILE and life is too short to waste any
of it in unnecessary grind. More
pupils have sung themselves into
familiarity with the multiplied ton ia
bic and more people have learned the
number of days in the month by the
old Thirty days hath September
verse than at first sight the conserva-
tives could be made to believe.
There are, no doubt, minds that rev.
ell in, the dull, steady grind Of techni-
cal acquirement-people who simply
dote upon dry statistics; but these
are comparatively few and far be-
tween, and do not in any sense
represent the freshness and brightness
of life. One may question whether
this is really healthy condition, al
though, of course, it has its uses; but
intelligence may be put to better
purpose than to waste it in mere mo-
notonous delving. Especially is this
the case when it is possible to invest
almost all branches of research with a
keen interest, and fix facts and events
in the mind by grouping or association
that makes the retention of them much
more easy and the memory of the study
far more agreeable.
The teacher or school board that
confines the pupil to some uninterest-
ing textbook merely because it has
for years been the standard is max
ing very serious mistake, the most
serious one possible perhaps. IS it
as waste of time-that one possession
that can never be recalled or made up
for. If more attention were given to
making lessons Of all sorts interesting,
if textbooks could be prepared special
~ with view to making them enter
tanning, and if teachers realized that
almost any child can be beguiled into
wisdom with but fraction of the eff
fort that is required to drive it, our
public school pupils would show marked
improvement, and the masses of the
people would be much better educat ted
than at present.
A few schools and instructors are fol-
lowing this plan. and the advantages
of it are SO evident that it gives reason
to hope that before many years the new
state of things will be general.-N. Y.
Ledger