The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1895-11-01

Almost every time the moon isl
full, or the sun in one Of his spotty
spasms shakes up our sphere, sta
tistic-loving cranks treat US to al
fresh outburst of tabulation in sup
port Of their respective hobbies.
The religious crank, for example,
shows by figures that won't lie how
the world is surely becoming Chris
tanned while the irreligious manip-
Iulator of the Arabic signs proves
how, out Of a world-population OF
fourteen or fifteen hundred millions,
there is only trihe over two hun
dred million Christians-and many
of these millions only nomlnally so.
The men OF figures have covered
every field Of social, ethical and in
dustrial effort. In each country
where there is printing press the
patriotic cranks try to prove, for in
stance, how the language they
speak is destined to become univer-
sal. We have many OF them here
who will show you indisputably
how the En-, lish tongue is slowly
but surely betting the earth and be-
coming the favorite language OF the
talking and writing millions. The
recent signingo an English-worded
treaty between Russia and China is
cited as one evidence of this, and
the adoption of English as the
school language ofJapan as another.
However promising such facts may
seem, they lose their rosy TINS
when faced with such statements as
the following:
professor KIRcHoFF, Of Halle,
Estimates that the language most
spoken on the globe for the last
Thousand years at least is Chinese,
for it is without doubt the only one
which is talked by over 400, goo, ,OW
of the human race. The next Ian
guage most in use, but very great
distance behind the Chinese, il
! Hindustani, spoken by about 100,
100000 Then follows English
spoken by about 100, ,0OO, 600; Rus
sian, over 10000, 900; German
t over 81 600, 900, and Spanish, owe
e AZ 900 900"
( But while the doctors of mathe
: mates continue thus to disagree
: we can well afford to leave them I
G their figure-splitting pastime, for W
! have enough to do in seeing that "
v and our children learn somethin
: about our own language bOfore W
G waste time and effort in trying I
e carry the war into Africa or any
, where else. The Germans here ar
: making a great effort to have thei
language taught in American pub
9 lie schools, as if the poor scholar
n did not have hard enough time {
{, ii in trying to swallow all the stu
il taught them by incompetent teacl
l. ers. The trouble is that there al
l. already too many things sought
t be impaired to the children, an
e the curriculum should be restricte
n rather than enlarged. 1t is stal
II gerng fact that but very few OF tn
e graduates from our public schoo
d have correct working knowlede
/, # their native tongue. The reaso
e is that the higher grades Of teacher
1t have been employed in the gramm;
l. schools, and the inferior teacher
% have been set over the little ones
r. the primaries. Few of the schola
e ever receive proper instruction /
is the elements of our language at II
time when the foundation wor
d should be firmly and permanent
'e laid, and very small is the numb
ID of teachers fitted by nature or trail
IS ing to do this priceless work. Eve
b. where they have the knowledg
in they too often lack the divine q
" that would enable them to impart
Or "No one knows all this bett
n than the experienced newsl ap
man; for into his hands come pou
ingdaily the proofs Of the lack
he early training on the part OF q
rs compositors, as well as on the pa
n of the authors, whose copy exhibl
< that shame Of American schooling
A.. H.. A,~. - Dr,ntor