The Portland daily press., 1896-12-10
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.
President Hyde Points out Some of It's
Defects

"The true province of the school ia to
impRrt knowledge and love of the laws
and forms of nature, the thoughts and
deeds of man. Education begins I'm the
experience, the authority. the affection
of the home The province of the ublio
school is to show the child that the same
reason and law and love that animate
the home also rule the universe. Tho
school is to make che child at home in
the larger world of men and things, the
master OF its forces, the minister of it's
| laws. the possessor of it's treasures. the
sharer of it's joys.
"The kindergarten introduces the child
| to the elemental forms of its larger
world, psoplessit with the creations of
fancy, makes it alive for him with in
tsrests and conflicts kindred co his own.
To omit the kindergarten stage in foolish
haste to acquire premature facility in
reading and writing and arithmetic is a
waste of nervous force; and. even il we
got the preoooious prodigy at which we
aim, in doing so We sacrifice the natural
interest and imaginative play which ara
the basis of achievement in science and
Of appreciation of literature and art.
"The kindergarten is the link between
the happiness of home and the gladness
and glory of the world, the mediator be-
tween the human parent and the heaven
ly father, leading the child not less effec
lively because for the most part uncon-
ciously from the love OF the one to the
love of the other.
Reading, writing, arithmetic aud
grammar convey the conventional sym
bols and instruments by which the child
communicates with the worli beyond his
range of vision, and his reach OF hand.
These numerical and verbal symbols are
Indispensable instruments of education.
Yet. tie Instruments are notsthe sub
stance.
"The grammar school gives the shell
of learning without its substance. What
wonder that under the influence of such
merely formal education, crime does not
diminish! What wonder that morality
declines, religion lanauishes, art decays,
and man degenerates! The form without
the substance, the instrument without
the object, is everywhere dangerous
thing. Reading, writing. grammar and
arithmetic with no substance Of sound
science to feed upon, no MANUAL training
to apply them to, no problems OF history
and civil government 10 grapple with,
no difficulties of foreign Languages to
conquer, no ideals of great literature to
delight in, are dangerous implements to
have lying about loose in democratic
society.
"The public school must do either less
or more than it has done, if it is to be
a real educator of youth, and an effect1ve
supporter of the Stata.
1.-The traditional grammar school has
fed children on mere husks-valuable
husks to be sure, as all huSks are in their
place, but Eusks alone are not fit food. for
children, and if you feed them on husks
alone, you turn your children Into swine.
The traditional grammar school has in
deed put the keys of knowledge into the
chlld's..hand, but it has failed to open
the treasures of wisdom to his mind and
heart. OF what use is it to teach child
to read, if he cares TO read nothing but
sensational accounts of crimeY or what
use is IL to teach him compound interest
and partial payments, if he spends his
money on quack medicines and fraudu
lent Insurance.?
and write and multiply amt divide, and
know little else-these are the people who
furnish fuel for the flames of jingO folly
and a. P. A.. fanatcism; who clasnor
or fat prices at which to sull labor aud
their goods, who substitute quackery for
medical science, mob violence for law,
theosophy for religion, passion for NOR
atty, impulse for reason, crazes and
caprices for conscience and the constitu
ton.
"The educa tion that is to give wisdom
to scholars and security to tho community
must teach not merely formal facility
in Intellectual gymnastics, but reverent
acquaintance with natural phenomena
anu natural law. loving fellowship with
human ideals and human character. In
order that these subjects shall be taught
in their broad, general features in the
elementary school, they must be studied
scientifically and Systematically through
out the high school course.
"And nothing will stimulate this
thorough study of these subjects in the
high school so effectively as their rscog-
milton as a part OF the requirement. for
admission to 3ollege. Modern languages,
advanced mathematics and physica ana
chemistry are so recognized aleady.
''This correlation of substances with
form in the elementary school win i'm
part to pupils the conviction that the
world is grOunfiau III reason and luled
by law, and that the life of man is o field
where noble ideals mas be sought and
won. l believe such reverence for
natural law and human character will do
more for temperance than special lessons
on morbid physiology can ever do.
ssCbildrep SO trained will not be so
eager to fight foreign nation OF perse-
cute the adj erents of n different faith,
or resort to general remedies for in
definite ailments, or enrich themselves
By bigh9taxes or cheap money, or prefer
the impulse of mob TO the safeguards of
the courts.
"To give child eight years of formal
discipline in the symbols Of knowledge,
without opening his mind and heart to
the apprehension of the natural and
spiritual world is simply to sharpen his
wits, and then throw them back upon
his appetites and passions for material to
exercise these shnrpened wits upon.
"Nowhere.do the devils of greed and
lust and conceit and laziness hold such
borrid carnival as in a mind swept and
garnished by formal training and at the
same time empty Of positive contents
and that is precisely {the kind of mind
the grammar schools which refuse to adj
nit the new subjects into their curricula