The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-09-10


which he or she has undergone
Tried by any such test it is far from an
accepted fact that the ordinary graduate
of our public schools can be regarded
G$Torably. He will not usually bear COM
parison in this regard with the graduate
of other schools systems far less favor
ed than ours in the possession of all the
needed facilities for furnishing sound
education. Nor can it be said that the
Incentive to future study. which is, or
ought to be, the most valuable result Of
school training, Is shown to be particu-
larry promoted through our public school
system of training.
A fearless and thoughtful writer in the
current number of Gunton's Magazine,
under the designation of Lys d Aimee,
discusses with much force the Menace
of Educational Methods" which is involv-
ed in the prevailing system of common
school training. Starting with the dec
laration that We turn our boys and
girls out of the grammar schools at
about fifteen, barely able to write a cor
rect letter, their knowledge of facts pain
fully meager, and their ability to think
sadly slender. the writer in the follow
ing sentence goes to the heart of what
most unprecedented students of the Aneri-
can common school have long recognized
as it's worst evil:
The Americans are the most common
schooled and the least cultivated people
In the world which gives somewhat of
an aspect of failure to our much vaunted
higher education The cause OF this de-
plorable state Of affairs Is two-fold: the
absolute decadence of the study of Eng
lish in the free schools of America, and
the tendency of modern education to
make study too easy, too entertaining.
There was a time when a teacher did not
hesitate to demand personal, unaided eff
pills, but now the attitude is: VIII you
please to listen to what am about to tell
you, and 1 will make it is interesting as
possible?' The mental nourishment We
spoon-feed our children is not only minced
but peptonized, so that their brains dl-
gest it without effort and without benefit,
ard the result Is the apaemic intelligence
of the average American school child.
With his ill-neurished mind and his III.
correct, sloveply use of his mother
tongue, the future citizen is not matter
of glowing intellectual pride te the lover
of this country"
Bad and corrupt as is the entire system
of faddism, which has been introduced
into our school system if the truth were
known, in the interests of book and sta
tienery concerns, and worse than
worthless in it's results as is the
system of training in vogue in
grammatical and literary construction,
there Is nothing which in it's demoralizing
results en- the unhappy pupil is to be
compared with the hypodermic plan of
furnishing scholastic knowledge, thus
leaving the young intellect to grow fiabby
and worthless in the present, and inca
pable of serious effort in the future. 1t
has been accounted something in the ma
ture of crime right here in ST. Paul
to allow the school children to carry their
books home, If they studied their les
sons over night, the idea appeared to be,
they weuld be in serious danger of con-
tracing brain disease from over-exer-
ton.
It is one Of the most hopeful circum-
stances relating to our common school
system that the higher vehicles of en-
lightened public opinion are month after
month. conveying to their readers some
thing of true and necessary understand
ing of the worst evils which inhere in
our costly system of public education.