The San Francisco call., 1898-03-27
MORE SCIENCE, LESS MYTHOLOGY Instructor HeatOn Pro- tests Against Classic
 Myths. Nature Study Urged as a Sub stitute for Ancient Su-
 perstitiOn.
Professor Brown Says We Are Ap- preaching a Unified National
 Educational System

Instructor T. l.. Heaton of the depart ment of pedagogy at the State Untver- sity in a lecture to teachers class yeS- terday morning, vigorously condemned the tendency in the schools Of the State to spend much time on classical myth ology at the expense Of modern science. He said:
 rrhree-fourths of the pupils in our public schools attend school for only six years. The rrobIem for the educator is to determine what few of the many important things should be taught At present the study of mythology IS carried to a great extreme visited recently a receiving class and found the children being taught mythology, in the fifth grade it was still mythology in the eighth grade it was still mythology and in the high school still more
 it is true that some knowledge of mythology is necessary to an understapdlng or art ana Iitarature But is it not quite as true that a knowledge of Bible stories is necessary also to fully understand literature and art Yet the iatter is totally excluded from the curricula of the schools and the children are lamentabiy ignorant of the Bible.
 o1oev9 If 1t is only the stories, the time spent on the subject is wasted. Mythology Is valu- ahIe in that it expresses in crude and bar harors manner the philosophy of the ancients. But in two thousand years have we not ad- yanced wonderfully? Is it rational to raise child's body according to nineteenth century methods and his mind by methods of the fourth to teach the children some or the wonderful scientific facts that have been discovered since the epoch of classic mythology.
 How many people, for instance, Know the wonders that have been accomplished by the limited States signal service? Last year 1t pre- dicted two weeks in advance the great floods of tbe Mississippi, and warnings were sent out, but the warnings were unheeded If the peo- ple had been educated in knowledge of science instead of a knowledge of mythology fhousands of dollars worth of property and hundreds of lives might have been saved. Let lis; have less mythology and more science; less ancient superstition and more knowledge; for Zeus was great but God is infinite
 ttf-.p uade as fascinating to the minds of children as the stories of mythology Nature study might well be taught in connection with the study of drawing, which is at present very poorly taught in our public schools. Nature strdy however should consist rather in train ins. the perception than in arrangement or facts which constitutes science proper. Still the teacher should have the science in his or her mind and the mistake should not be made of teaching mass of miscellaneous and dis connected facts.
 Professor Elmer E. Brown continued his historical review of the development of Education in the United States. He said:
 Little by little our American educational sys- tenn has been approaching great unified sys- tenn: it has gradually come to realize the ideal national system of education which Huxley de- clared must be ladder reaching from the gut ter to the university.
 If seems that this State furnishes a com plete and Independent educational system. The Influence of academies, which In many States is very powerful. does not amount to so much in this State. although we have a few very good academies and a number of good, strong private schools
 Among the important steps that must be taken in our educational progress are the es- tahlshment of reform schools-schools between the grammar school and the reform