The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-01-11

| dangerous to dwell exclusively upon It's
| defects without indicating how they
may be cured. 1t is dangerous also
| to lay upon the broad back of the pub
| lie school, all the responsibility for con-
| ditions that spring from a variety OF
causes. And there is a growing ten
| dency toward both these mistakes. Mrs
| Davis thinks that the schoolhouse is q
| fetch" in our eyes-that we believe
wherever stands "a life giving icho1
goes out of it which will conquer not
| only ignorance, but poverty and crime.
| Perhaps all Americans once felt thus.
But community, whatever the follies
and the sins of its young people, many
persons lay the whole blame upon what
| they call our craze for generalization"
Because of this craze, they tell us, the
hill towns and even the valley farms Of
New England are abandoned to nature
or the the immigrant, while the sons
and daughters of soil flock to the towns.
Because of it good servants are hard to
find even in our largest cities. Because
of it early marriages grow fewer, and
simple, strenuous home life is deSpised
Because of it, our men are becoming In
sanely ambitious and our women morb-
idly disconnected, the professions are
overcrowded, the trades suffer for re-
cruits and public life is contaminated
by the domination of the unfit. In short
If our school system is still our fetch,
we have relapsed into barbarian way
of treating it. We praise and thank it
sometimes; but often we beat and spurn
it because the rain does not fall. the fish
will not bite or the hunter breaks his
leg.
Mrs. Davis is not by any means the
first who has pronounced upon an
American village such a verdict, as she
passes on the one she, calls x. BY the
clearness of her description l recognize
X. as place In which | lived for six
or seven summers as Mre. Davis's
neighbor. But l do not think that it's
condition is due to the presence of the
three huge schoolhouses and the free IL
brary," or even to the fact that they
are not as good Of their kind as they
ought to be. The whaling and coasting
trades that once nourished X. and fos-
tered activity and self-reliance in it's
Inhabitants are dead, but they were not'
killed by overeducation!
Tt is dangerous to exaggerate the share
of blame that should be laid upon the
public schools, because we may be led
into one of two opposite errors. We may
come to despise our school system, and
so neglect to maintain its properly, or
we may expect too much from it and
lay upon 1t burdens that it ought not
to bear. Mrs Davis's first article is a
sign that the first named danger is a
real one. The second is illustrated by
the people who cry out that the public
schools should teach dogmatic form of
religion, or declare that they should
teach the manual trades.
If so, logic demands that they should
also teach the professions and arts the
highest forms of specialized knowledge, |
and the simplest handicrafts-thatt they
should assume the whole work of secu- |
ar education. But even to think OF this |
S to mistake the real reason why our |
free school exists and Is supported by |
general taxation. 1t exists primarily |
'or the sake of the State, of society, of
he public not for the sake of the indi-
yidual child as such. 1t is bound to |
each him such things as are needed to
it him for active and honorable life in
he Republic, but not. specifically and
such as may be desirable to
Irepare him for the conduct of his per-
onal career And even in fitting him
or life in the broader sense, it de-
hands the intelligent cooperation of
he home and of professedly ethical in
titutions. If it does not get this its
wn work will be hampered: the home,
low considered the foundation stone of
ociety, will lose its value by abdicating
is influence over the young and thus
1eing it's cohesion and stability, and the
hurches will deserve to be abolished
$ cumberers of the ground OF course,
o system Of education, although avow-
dly and necessarily based upon what
Irs. Davis calls book learning" is
ensible which confines itself to the in
ormation drawn from the printed page,
nd no kind of secular education is good
yhich cultivates nothing except the
1ind. Yet there is valid distinction
etween courses of training for the mind
or the body and for the conscience,
cart and soul, and some specialization
| the manner of giving them is need
H. s
/ must say final word from the
tandpoint of one who, during the last
We years, has had a personal acquain-
ance with the New York public school,
nd, outside of its walls, with those
asses of the population that most
eeply needs it's help. The more I have /,
udied 1T, the more distinctly | have
,me to understand the difficulties with !
hioh it has to cope and the way in :
hich it is often isolated in it's effort
cope with them, the more clearly /
ave realized the difference between the !
verage parent of foreign or even of
merican birth, the longer I have re- !,
scted upon the picture our crowded
I'd polyglot poorer quarters would pre- :. q
mt If it did not exist--the more I have u
zen impressed not by it's defects but = :.
I its merits; not by failures, but by y
; successes; not by the deficiencies of :,
teachers, but by their unself1sh de-
'tion and the educational intelligence q
ey often display even when their i"
holastic equipment Is not of the best u
ny reader who will take the same prac- d
,al method Of inquirlng into the ques- =
IN will soon be brought, think, to y =,
rec with me that a 'life giving ichor'
es indeed go out of our public schools, y
en- in their present imperfect estate .
3D. eeeing how steadily and rational -
they are being improved, he will be- "
We that, while they may never con- al
er ignorance, poverty and crime, they y
Il min victories greater than any that =.