The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1897-02-27
Some Rambling Thoughts.
BY MEMO.

Let us dismiss the idea once and for
all that school ought to be sort of
brick-machine to force the children
into definite, pre-arranged shapes.
Yet this is often attempted and too
largely successful. The result-de-
struction of individuality.
In a crowd no faces are alike, though
only the slightest differences are dis
coverable, when, individual organs
are compared. Yet to suit the shape
and appearance Of the face BARRIERS
and milliners go TO elaborate pains
and we willingly submit.
But when it comes to the training
of the mind and the preparation for a
successful life, though we know the
various members of the family are dia-
metrically opposed to each other in
tastes, ideas, temper, disposition, and
intelligence, yet we quietly surrender
them to the educational machine, with
possibly slouchy ill-trained youth or
a self-sufficient miss at the lever.
The grinding and forcing begins by
those0who ignore the physiology of
the child, and with no knowledge of
any hereditary influences, punish in
like manner the different natures.
Like the off-shoots on an Espalier
fruit tree, every tendency towards in
dividuality is carefully trimmed away
by the machine teacher, in slavery to
uniformity. Graduation day comes,
and your son or your daughter stands
up with others, all having trayersed
so many pages of arithmetic, SO many
books of Virgil; and stumbled over
the Pons Asinorium (The Bridge of
Asses) in geometry Then the poor
things are flung out into the world |
with a ''finished" education. There |
in the midst of merciless crowd with
no time to give them individual
study, they have to ''findn them
selves and discover their own posi-
bilities in most painful fashion.
Lay your hand on almost any biog-
raphy and you will find that in many
instances the subject has been kept |
away for years from the main purpose
of life by this "self-fndingn process.
He gropes this way and that, and is
as effectual barred from his real
function in the world, as the average |
youth in forced army service. At
fifteen or twenty it is altogether too
late to begin looking for indications
of the line your child is best fitted to
follow. From its cradle onward you
have been IN position to note
hundred signs that could have told
you its mental bias But like love
that is showered on corpse, your in
terest is awakened only after the in
has been killed by vio-
lence or starved by neglec.
You must recognize that the mag
nificent battle for universal education
has been made victory by Horance
Mann, Dr. Barnard and host of
lesser note in this country. But we
are not to stop. Like the traveller in
a billy region, the higher we climb
the further we can see. RelinquiSh-
ing then not one particle of belief in
education" we press forward to sin
dividual study of EACH" Were you in
a position to read all the educational
and to follow the speech
es at the various Teachers Institutes
and the National Educational Associ-
alton, you would find this ''child-
study" the burden of the exhorta-
tional to the teacher.
But write unto you, parents; be-
cause you are many, and because you
are essential to the new purpose OF