The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1900-01-19
REFORM IS NEEDED.
Public Schools Of Washington Are
Far Behind the Times,
A. Congress Makes the Laws for the
District of Columbia Al citi-
sens Are Interested in
This Matter.
Especial Washington letter.

Especial washington letter.
You have often been told of the
splendid educational advantages which
are afforded to young men and young
women in this national capital, but
there is another story to be told on
that subject.
Higher education is desirable only
for those who aspire to high places in
public affairs and in social life. Com
mon school education is desirable for
the masses. Every child should have a
common school education, and it were
better far that every child should learn
to read and write and cipher than that
a chosen few should have collegiate and
university advantages.
The common schools of this city are
not worthy of the national capital, be-
cause they are not conducted on COM
mon sense principles. Consequently
the children receive educations which
are impractical, because they do not fit
the boys and girls for practical contact
with the world.
In the first place, surprising as it may
seem, grammar is not taught in our
common schools, nor in our high
schools. One of the young lady gradu-
ates of the high school, a near relative
of the narrator, this evening said:
II am now going to college and am
studying Latin and Greek. 1t is abso-
lutely necessary to study grammar in
order to learn the first principles of
those languages, and hence am study
ing grammar. I never studied gram
mar while was in the public schools
here, nor in the high school. What I
know of English grammar was learned
by absorption, by the lessons learned
at home, when my speech was correct
ed by my father and mother. So far
as the public schools are concerned, I
might have been graduated in complete
ignorance of the correct methods of
speaking or writing my mother tongue.
Moreover" she continued, "they did
not teach spelling in the public schools,
and very few of the high school gradu-
ates know how to spell correctly. In
Latin and Greek I find that it is abso-
lutely necessary to know how to spell
every word, in order to be able to use
the dictionary intelligently, when at
tempting to translate sentences and
paragraphs into English. Hence I am
beginning, although high school
graduate, to turn my attention to the
correct spelling of the English lam
guage. OF course, am not poor spell
er, but am not good speller because
IN, he
public schools"
This statement is so surprising that
It would not be deemed worthy of quo
tation or belief, but for the fact that
the writer has personal knowledge of
its truthfulness. High school gradu-
ates have attempted to write short
hand and transcribe their notes ON the
typewriter, and have demonstrated
their utter inability to do even that
kind of work, because they do not know
how to spell.
For example, graduates of the Wash
ington high schools acting as stenog-
raphers for years for your correspon-
right" supposing that the words "all
right" so commonly used, constitute
but one word spelled as above. Scores
of them use the word "anythink" for
anything. Hundreds of them say: 81
taken" or che taken" for II took" or
''he Took
The young men and young women
who speak and spell in that manner are
graduates of the Washington high
schools. There is not common school