The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-20
STILL. nEs1sTING PROGRESS.

p. F. Lyons, Observer.
STILL RESISTING PROGRESS.
There has always existed in society
an element that opposed Improvement.
1t has left It's records all along the
line of history. 1t exists today dimin-
ished in numbers and influence. 1t OPP
poses progress in all it's fields, material,
scientific, theological, partly because
its indoIent comfort is disturbed; part
~ because material interests are i'm
paired; mostly because Of mental tor
pidity. English weavers smashed the
spinning machines; Calico was forced
by the Inquisition to disavow the Co
rerncan theory, and within our own
times The storm of fury that Darwins
theory Cf CyolJticn reused is not Who'll
~ spent. So it is rot surprising that
there yet remain men and women who
denounce with bitterness as 'fads" the
progress that educational methods
have made in harmony with the ad
vance in every other field. Whenever
hard times make every one study
household economies, these old fogies
come to the surface and attract the
ear with their lamentations for the
good old days of the three Rs and the
decadence of our modern schools.
Minneapolis is just now furnishing
these antiquarians with an opportu-
nifty, and they are utilizing 1t. The
Tribune is their organ and their vent.
1t quotes an Iowa papers doleful plant
of the "fads," and applauds it. 1t "is
the tone now assumed by the most en-
lightened exchanges that reach this Of
flee from all over the country" 1t says;
all enlightened exchanges" being
those holding it's own antiquated no
lions and prejudices. If it were asked
to specify these "fads," it would an
swer that their name is legion" but
1t names manual training, cooking,
sewing, modern languages, all the dead
languages except Latin, and a vast
smattering Of miscellaneous informa-
ton embraced under the name Of ma
ture study" It is not that the Trib
une objects to education, but to what
modern educators esteem education to
be. This attitude, where 1t is not due
to a sensitive pocket nerve, or to q
stolid conservatism that believes that
all good things were with the fathers
and that the race is steadily degener-
ating, is due to a failure to keep that
touch with progress in educational
methods that has been kept unavoid-
ably with the progress made in other
fields. We doubt, for instance, If the
Tribune would have the Mergenthaler
dismissed, or the electric motor demol-
ished, or the germ theory discarded,
or the tallow candle reinstated, or the
sewerage system destroyed or the roll
er mill sent to the rear and the wind
mill and burr stones restored. It &C
cepts them because it has kept in daily
touch with them and believes their ad-
vantages to the material welfare Of
the race.
But with education and it's methods
no such touch has been kept. We doubt
If any one of all these "anti-faddists'
has spent half a day in any school
since they packed up their books and
babe the schoolroom goodbye years
ago. If they are parents, they have
had key-hole glimpses of school meth
DDS as their children have told Of their
studies or floored them with questions.
But their lives and school work have
been apart. Their concept Of teaching
and studies is naturally that which
they gained in their own school days,
and, If they were then the best going,
it is not surprising that these persons
still think they were the best that
could be. But would 1t not be re-
Election upon our intelligence if edu-
Gators should not have gained wider
conceptions Of what education is and
how gained, while their fellows in the
shops and laboratories were making
such tremendous strides2 Would it not
be a reproach If they should not have
realized that the very basis Of state
education, the better fitting of youth
for the duties Of citizenship, required
much more than making pupils liable
to read, write and cipher more or less
WELL" as Huxley described the English
idea of education thirty years ago?
Why should not the eye be trained to
quick and accurate observation and
the hand to dexterity in aiding the
tongue in expression, when both eye
and hand are SO essential in the wori,