The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1894-05-19
Reform IN EDUCATION.

The Chicago Inter Ocean, In writ
ing of the reforms in elementary edu-
cation, says the subject deserves the
attention of every parent, teacher, and
school trustee who has any apprecis-
tion of the importance of bettering our
public schools The matter alike con
Germs cities with their graded schools
and rural districts with their single
schoolrooms and teachers for pupils of
all ages and grades.
One of the leading purposes, per-
haps the initial one, was to make our
public schools preparatory for admis.
sion to college, or, in other words,
establish connection between public
schools and institutions of higher
learning. Hitherto even the regular
general course in the high school seems
to have little thought of the college.
President Eliot, of Harvard, was
prime mover in the matter and was
made chairman of the committee of
ten appointed by the National Educa-
tional Association, The initial idea
might easily be carried too far, just as
there is no small danger Of adjusting
instruction in the lower grades of our
public schools to the high school. 1t
must never be forgotten or overlooked
that a very large per cent of the child
rem of the land, city and country, are
taken out of school so early that
strictly elementary education Is about
all they can ever acquire under teach
ers. But there is really nothing
Objectionable from that point OF. view
IN the reform proposed. Indeed, the
committee could not have suggested a
better plan of elementary instruction
had the very object been to meet the
wants of those who never pass beyond
the threshold of education.
The leading idea is to Danish the
obsolete and substitute such new
studies as may be best adapted to the
early stages of education. For exam
pie, in arithmetic the committee would
drop out compound proportion, cube
root, abstract mensuration, and the
greater part of commercial arithmetic,
and early give some instruction in
algebraic expressions and symbols,
also in solid and plane geometry.
There are great many dead limbs on
the tree of knowledge which ought to
be cut off, giving the fresh sprigs
chance to grow.
Beneath the kindergarten system
lies deep philosophy of pedagogics.
The child needs to have the faculty of
perception cultivated into the habit of
observation, so that familiar things,
such as the weather, plants, animals,
and the like, shall be constant text
books. The root idea of Froebel is
applicable to every public school
course. Mrs. Blackwelder shows
luminonsly that the report of the COM
nittee of ten is very largely based on
Froebel.
The educational tendency of the day
is in the main in the right direction.
The development Of the mind. rather
than cramming it BY memorization isthe
key note of this tendency. But there |
are not wanting indications of no small
danger of carrying this reform idea too |
far. There are many things, at least
some things, which ought to be gotten
into the mind, and in such q way as to
be remembered, whether understood
or not. Every child, for example,
should be drilled in the multiplication
table until perfectly familiar with it
all, and absolute master Of it. Then,
too, spelling is largely matter of
memory. The English language is
purely arbitrary in photography, often
to the point of absurdity, and every
chlld should be drilled in spelling.
Until these arbitrary variations are
familiar one can hardly write a SEN
tence without using at least one word
which, with q different meaning but |.
the same sound, would be spelled DIFF
ferently. Take this last sentence and
it has three such words, one, write,
and would. There is no primrose path
to correct spelling, and the drudgery
of the long journey must be accepted
as inevitable. But while all this is
true and important the modern idea
of leading out the faculties of the
mind, instead Of numbering up the
brain with unintelligible knowledge, is
q great and bene6cent educational re-
form