The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1893-03-30
FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES,
He Cleaned knowledge at
Great Expense.
Nj. II. Harlan Writes on
Education.

1t was my duty in the early part of
life to have much to do with the pub
lie schools of one of the foremost
school states in the great republic. |
was paid salary of that of a first
grade teacher in our high schools, and
spent most of it in collecting data
from all the European countries, rel
ative to the best and most approved
systems of the age: also, from our
own admirable free school system,
probably the best adapted for our
own institutions in the whole category
of education. Education is prob
lem which works out its own saliva
ton. { A system is like the snow ball
that starts to roll from the top of an
inclined plane; it gathers its gravity
as it descends, and is a happy one if
it does not, by an awkward start, clash
against some stubborn obstruction and
dash itself into atoms, as many have
in the past The unskilled hand is
apt to bring to naught the beautiful
block of marble in trying to shape it
to an Apollo, or spoil the granite slab
in endeavoring to hue out Hercules.
The chisel must be placed by the
hand of the skilled master and tapped
by the hand of an artist, to bring to
relief the beautiful form. The con-
ception must be in the artistic mind,
the hands and tools must be trained
to the conception. So with the arti-
san who would shape the human
mind, and the laws that govern the
artisan in his task to finish the rough
asher into the beautiful pattern, tC
! adorn human society, must be shaped
by master mechanic, else the form
will be distorted. Those who would
!, make the profound study of the laws
governing a thorough school system
, secondary to any other subject, arr
not fully prepared to make laws b,
which great country are governed
! OF the three great factors in civi
governments, intellectual, financia
and physical a system of school
produce the good or vicious qualitie
. of two of them, intellectual and phys
ical. But we may have the most pei
feet system of education in existenc
. and not reap the benefits of its pre-
, Visions. There must be a harmon
existing throughout all of its parts
- assure the full rewards Of the law:
j., If the people governed show an api
10 thy in trying to carry out its provi'
- ions, that apathy destroys part
a the benefits of the design. Thel
must be, on the part of those benefi
-, ed directly by our free schools,
thorough willingness to do all that
j., required of them by the system. \
J.. lukewarm adherence will do A goo
school house, well furnished, a cor
- petent and thorough teacher, the ne
- essary books, maps, charts, globe
:. and all other paraphernalia, are n
80 all that is necessary. There Is a
10 other and greatest of all necessiti6
You must send the children in t
- district to school, regularly, or t
- best system in the world will fail
-. accomplish its desired object. L
: main object of our schools is hlgf
e. intelligence among the masses.
49, the massing of people, the wise W
the ignorant, the active with the 81
m pid, the powerful with the weak, t
good with the bad, the virtuous W
the vicious, make mankind bett
hence the more of our children
I'M
can mass in our schools the better
49, general knowledge will be dissel
mated, that is, to the extent of
- capacity of our school houses to h
the pupils. The rule followed aim
universally in our districts is the
verse of the true system of econo
ies' in our schools. Many districts arc
divided that there are not more Il
three or four pupils in attendance.
must admit that in a new ceun
oao like ours we make our districts Ia
ee' and then only have a small atte
'er ance, but those should be exceptic
Do, | know of districts being divi
Iase wholly because there were little p'
'ha- iealousies existing between part
the and in one instance where it was I
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