Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-04-08
AN INTERESTING PAPER.
Upon the Subject Common Sense in the
Public Schools

his subject being Common Sense in the
Public Schools. +" Much matter at that
time was crowded from the columns of
tho Journal, this very interesting paper
among the rest and the Journal takes
this occasion to publish it in full.
The foundation of the edifice of Arperi-
can freedom and our liberty is the nublic
school system. Whatever harms that
harms our country; whatever is beneficial
to 1t is beneficial to us and to our state
stand before you, this morning. a firm
believer in that system. have no fads ar
theorlcs to advance; no hobby to bestri6e
but believing that my observation has
taught me certain things which T believe
OF benefit or prejudice to a system TO
Which owe so much, and to which l
KNOW we are all friends, | feel that am
70 speak not as one clad in authority.
put as one who desires his hearers TO
come ana reason together, that any sug-
eestlons or ideas of value to that great
system may perhaps be used; that errors,
IL they exist, may be noted and we NAV
see That remedies are adopted.
Inc public school system is essentially
OF New England parentage. Here IL was
hrst founded generally and from here it
extended throughout our country. To
New England and New England's teach
ers the United States are indebted to the
common school system which has per
meatcd every part Of them. As early as
the year 16G5-the landing at Plymouth
was only fifteen years earlier-frec schools
were recognized by the general law of our
mother colony, Massachusetts. In 1896,
Harvard College was instituted. Six
years later the general assembly ordered
that every village of fifty families should
have school i'll which reading and writ
ing should be taught; and every town
ship OF 100 families should support a
grammar school where Latin and Greek
should be taught. From that time on I'M
til tho present the statute books are filled
with laws relative to free public schools.
Laws whose ideas are copied into the
statute books of every one of our Ameri-
can commemorative.
There is hardly Il man or woman OF
note whose name adorns the pages of
American history, whose education was
not founded at the public school From
simplicity itself the methods of teaching
have become an elaborate science; from
the three RS" they have developed into
q ramiiication of theories and scientific
methods, which, at best, seem to an OBJ
server sometimes artificial and not de-
signed to give the scholar what is most
needed an education which will fit him
or her for the practical work of life. II
is upon few of these points that | pro-
pose to touch, for my limited time will
prevent either an elaborate survey or the
deduction which such q survey might
bring.
It is hardly right to contrast the old red
schoolhouso with its cut and distigured
pine desks and benches with the modern
schoolhousc with it's perfect light and
perfect vcntilation but who will dare to
deny that within those red walls was
taught nearly all that was actually es-
sential to the child welfare in the battle
Of life? With modern sanitary ideas in
building has also come modern ideas in
teaching In many of the latter | see
tendency to make a child less self reliant,
less rugged and more superficial. / have
no desire to go back to the "good old
times" but | do believe that those times
were not all wrong and that certain
simplicity aud good common sense has
given way to u certain shallowneSS in
education which is harmful to the scholar
and which could be abrogated. Not for
a moment would / suggest less hcalthful
and modern surroundings in building or
any retrogression in modern sch0olhousc
architecture.
Let us for moment consider what is
really necessary i'll actual life in the way
of education | say II good substantial
English education. I grant you that
classical and higher education is of the
greatest assistance in mind training and
culture; but from the practical stand
point how many men OF women ever have
the actual practical use in their own lives
for Latin and Greek | maintain that
any bright young person can in six
months Study pick up all the dead Ian
guago which Is necessary in any protes-
sion. Why, the use Of Latin profts-
sionaliy, grows less and less and is re
stricted almost entirely to a few phrases
in law and TO Latin names in the phar-
nlaeopcia There WAS o time when
legal papers were written in Latin, butt
that time is past So too there was
time when q ran who had college odu
cation had from the start a position and
prestige almost unattainablo today "a time
when the public speaker punctuated every
Understanding sentence with an unintel
ligible Latin phrase Today, paradoxical
as it sounds, when simplicity has given way
10 modern methods in teaching, the sonor-
Gus quotation seldom if ever heard, and
yet / DO not intend to imply that classical
education is wrong or unnecessary in the
least, nor would / seek to eliminate it
from our public schools.
Now this brings me to this thought:
The public school is paid Tor by the PEG
pie ut large, and whatever is for the great
est good to the greatest number is that
which should receive the greatest atten-
ton and the most encouragement from
those in authority in our school system.
maintain, without danger of controyer-
sion, that what is most needed today in
the public schools, not only here, but
everywhere, is a more thorough and sys-
tematic teaching of English. More atten-
ton and money for rudimcntary eduea-
ton and less for higher and special
branches.
You will all agree with me that being
taxed for public schools should make it
certain that those who are unable to give
their children all the years in the public
schools which yours and mine may have,
should be assured that everything which