Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-02-23

mind of the reader. This shows the fallacy
of the idea which prevails with Washing
ton school teachers, that whatever is novel
in teaching is in the line of progress and
better than the old system. l had to teach
my children their alphabet over again after
they had been in school a year.
n. B. MILLIKEN.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:
1t must be patent to the dullest intellect
that our teachers have not enough to DO
Each day means large expenditure OF the
peoples money, and these public servants
should earn their salaries. An excellent
scheme evidently with this end in view
has been recently fnaugurated IN the I'M
position q use the word adyisedly) on the
teachers of the work of ascertafnlng ana
tabulating certain data with reference to
the physical condition of their pupils. Tnls
is certainly move in the right direction
That it has proved a success in helping
the teachers earn their salaries not one of
them will deny. But it is not sufficiently
comprehensive. While experimenting the
daily work of five hours by five addluonal,
it still leaves the teacher time to eat, TO
read in The Evening Star the fiattering
encomiums of the Congress Heights Asso-
station and to sleep after thanking the
Lord for the inestimable privilege of being
one of the profession. 1t behooVes the
management, therefore. to enlarge the
scope of this beneicent scheme. As the
list now stands it covers only such items
as the childs weight, age, height, chest
Measurement, hip measurement pulsatlon'
respiration and twenty-five or thirty SINH
lar points. The crying need of the hour Is
more statistics, more measurement of the
child in his length, breadth and c1rcum-
ference. more pertinent Cor 1mpertinentl IN
quiry as to his antecedents, more searching
Investigation to ascertain whether the TACT
of a pupils eyes being both black and blue
is traceable to heredity or the result OF a
pugilistic encounter. True, that while col
lecting these statistics In October ana Fep-
ruary the daily recitatons ana the dlscl-
pline of the school have been sacrificed, the
teacher may have lost her patience and
found her temper and succumbed at tne
close of the task to an attack OF nervous
prostration. But these are bagateiles When
weighed against the value of the facts 90
thus obtained. Teachers should not lose
patience, yield to temper, or De troubled
with nerves. True too that the physicians
who recently visited the schools TO test the
last two items on the list retreated igno-
miniously after wrestling with the matter
only three hours in two classes, declaring
that it interfered seriously with their regu-
lar practice. But allowance must De mace
for the medical practitioner. He has only
one science to master; the teacher, to meet
the requirements Of her calling, must be
geologist, physicist. mathematician, mu-
stefan, artist historian and missionary, and
all as, the immortal Dickens says, for so
much, or rather so little, year Why
should not such a versatile worker ADD TO
her list of accomplishments the title of
NJ. D.? H. .. " +.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:
The system of teaching the alphabet in
the public schools of the District of Column
bia. is probably like the system that was
formerly in use in Providence, Rhode
Island. A business man Of that city had
occasion to employ youth educated in
the city public schools. 1t took the young
man a long time to find a name in the
litV directory
and he could not readily find words in the
dictionary. Upon inquiry it was found that
his difficulty was caused by his ignorance
of the order of the letters of the alphabet
-verburn sap W. ]. S.
To the Editor Of The Evening Star.
The following request was recently ad-
dressed to a gentleman who Is connected
with the public school system in this city:
Miss - informs me that my son is
not making satisfactory progress in the
work of the school, and that he is inatten-
tive and listless While / regard the ulti-
mate knowledge of all the branches said
to be taught in the public schools very
desirable, dare not overlook the fact that
the tenure of my sons earthly existence is
very precarious and depends upon the en-
durance of very slight and weak physical
constitution, and that, for this reason, the
care of his health is of the utmost i'm
portance. An attempt to force the entire
curriculum of these schools upon him has
shown that the labor and confinement nee
essary thereto very soon disable him, even
for the health-preserving exercises of boy
ish sport, and that. If we should thus dis
regard his physical welfare, he would
shortly have no further use in this world
for any of the knowledge taught In the
schools. Therefore, if / were compelled to
choose whether he should neglect all study
that he might be able to play, or omit play
that he might acquire thorough knowl-
edge of the entire course as prescribed and
taught, would choose that he should cease
to study that he might play.
Although it is plain TO all who are ac-
quainted with my son that he has not the
strength to study non-essentials,
1 had thought that by the exercise of care
and discernment on the part of his parents
and teachers he might be able to acquire
such essential knowledge as would enable
him to succeed in some of the less ar6u-
Gus avocations. But he cannot learn to
spell, read, capitalize and punctuate, nor
can he obtain knowledge of arithmetic,
accounts and business methods, because his
precious time and limited strength must be
in eXhausting efforts to know the
derivation of words and all about prefixes
and SuffiXeS and synonyms and homonyrns.
to understand the useless fntricacies of |
'PoweiFs Analysis and apply the system to |
difficult passages in Longfellow's Evange-
line,' etc.; to know the minutest details of 4
as, for instance, the different fami- /
lies and dialects of the Indian tribes when /
Columbus discovered America; to memorize /
poems; to learn geology, physical geography /
and other branches which should be de- /
ferred In the education of the most robust i
pupil until he should have entered the tenth
grade
"Can my son express his thoughts more
readily or clearly because he has been per-
secuted with 'PowelPs Analysis?' No; but
his spelling, reading and penmanship are
abominable, because during the time that
le should have been thoroughly taught in \
hose branches they were not taught him.
but. instead, his time was wasted, his DOW
srs exhausted and he was plagued with ex-
,rcises In non-essentials. /, myself, had
aught him at home, and by this means he