The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-07-13
AN ORIGINAL AND STRIKING PA
PER On EDUCATION.

The New York Cosmopolitan Maya
z7ne is publishing a series OF contrfbu-
ffonA upon Modern Education" from
various sources. Thus far four have
appeared. and from distinguished pens.
One paper was by President Gilman,
Of Johns Hopkins university, and an
other by President Eliot, of Harvard
university, as we recall them. The last
ss by Professor H. T.. Peck, professor
OF Latin and Literature in Columbia
university, New York. This is the only
one we have read. 1t is very enter
tanning. 1t is start1ingly fresh n
vigorous and bold. 1t will "astonish"
many "of the natives In his section,
and furnish entertainment and refiec-
Zion to many teachers, writer's, think
ers and professional men in the south.
1t is radical in some sense, presents
views not popular, has a great deal of
srubh in it as all well read men who
are fairly familiar with the history OF
the world for the last two hundred
years know. We cannot indorse all
Cha Professor Peck advances, but bear
Testimony to it's clarity Of style, its
vigor of presentation, it's thoroughly
Independent tone, and his fidelity to
facts so far as he presents them and
as We recall them. Il will provoke great
opposition and be sharply criticised
for it's singularly outspoken, brave and
earnest words. It is capital reading,
and both the enthusiastically" or the
~1aristOcratically" taught in North
Carolina (see Pages SPECIFY will read
with hearty zest and refreshment of
spirit
Professor Peck is the distinguished
editor Of The Bookman,' and within
two or three years has made much
reputation as a critic, scholar and man
of letters. The Messenger some time
.agn considered at sorne length his pa
per upon the Boston or Massachusetts,
~Iiterati, which was particularly spicy,
fncisive and we'll based as to range Of
observation and facts.
In his paper in The Cosmopolitan for
July (Which you be sure to read) he
gives a fair account Of the progress of
~E0uCaIlOn. ana uilutE Nldl lHlltSlCto
in this country. He shows that at
first, and until within the last thirty
five or forty years, the American youth
were educated after the English sys-
tenn under which the foremost men of
Great Britain and Of the United States
the nation builders and the men of
Statesmanship-Were educated. But
carly in the sixties Americans began
10 hurry to G~ermany-they were doing
this to some extent as early as the for
ties, however, with an increase in the
ffties-and then the English system
was discarded, and the German system
was accepted, and all was changed.
The contrast drawn by Professor Peck
Of the two systems is with true insight,
great felicity of language, marked vigor
and utmost clearness of statement.
Beginning with the 264th page and-ex-~
tending through the succeeding four
pages there IL indeed a great deal of
1tf6od for thought" as well as accurate
description and penetrating view.
We believe that while there may be
something OF exaggeration in the pre-
sentation-in the details-there IS a
sound foundation for much that is
written. We cannot we'll copy from it.
1t would m%utilate the train of refec-
zion which should be read as a whole
70 fully take in.
After discussing the German way of
study and their multitudinous rmu
Tor government, he then refers to the
''~educational formula" a product also
of the German mind. He says: Just
as the legislative formula is to make
men prosperous and happy, so the ed
ucational ormul is to make them wise
and We recall that more
than forty years ago Horace Mann, OF
Massachusetts, actually held the edu-
cational theory to be sufficient for the
uplifting of the race and it's practical
regeneration and without the Bible or
Christ. This is as we remember it, for
IT has been perhaps four decades or
more since we read a line from him.
Professor Peck continues: Education
San do anything, we are told, and every
one is capable of being educated, just
[tS ally oiV 10 N"phDIC Vi oOA1AS $1,000
An educator Let us quote just here
a. little:
~Tyhere is first the educational formu-
Ia itself, the alkaheSt, the universal
solvent of our intellectual alchemists.
Then there is the fOrmula for making
the first formula known, and the for
snula for intoxicating the other formula;
so that today We have teachers who
teach teachers to teach other teaCneTS
now to teach. Everything is worked
out to the last degree of scientific eXv
actness The individual idiosyncrasy
of the learner does not count. There is
IL psychological formula which reduces
all intellectS and all capacities to a
common denomination, and everything
can now be done by a set of scientific
rules, from the time required per diem
for teaching each division and subdi-
vision of a topic to the precise manner
in which that topic must be taught, al
most down to the cut of the teachers