Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1901-02-14
Where Our Schools Fail.

| Where Our Schools rail.
The remarkable development of the
common schools during the past twenty
five years is an advancement of which
the American citizen is justly proud. 1t
is without parallel in the history of the
world; yet the most enthusiastic friends
of our common school system are not
| blind to it's defects.
| One great defect defect Characters
tic of the times in which we live, is ex-
pansion at the expense of thoroughness.
An expanding curriculum is the fad.
| Each new superintendent, principal and
school board must revise the course; new
| studies are added until the distracted pu-
pills are lost in whirlpool of uncertain
ty. Each year the requirements become
more eXacting, and the pupils time more
limited. Social obligations are more and
more crowding school obligations to the
wall. The boy of Is SwellS into the pro-
same age entertains her beaux and graces
balls and receptions. Even little school
entertainment is thought incomplete I'M
less it winds up with dance. All these dis
fractions dissipate time and attention and
vitality. Ifparents would insist on the
children during the school age indulging
in nothing incompatible with school du-
ties and the best health, one defect would
be remedied; but parents do not always
control their children, or at least do not
seem to.
But to continue this same thought
little further. We have expansion at the
expense of thoroughness. Under the
present system the high school graduate
knows a little, sometimes a very little,
about many different subjects. Under
the old system he knew, or had an OPP
portunity to know considerable, about
few subjects. Even the dullard was
bound to know something about English
and mathematics and kindred subjects.
Rhetorcals used to be a regular weekly
or monthly exercise in country and viii
lage schools, and the weekly lyceum or
debating club in which the community
generally participated was valuable
auxiliary. All this is out of fashion now.
Rhetoricals, the horrid things, have been
relegated to the garnet. School papers
have died for lack of intellectual support.
Debating clubs have been forced to in
troduce talks and entertainments. Debat-
ing, or declaiming, is too greata tax on the
mental equilibrium of the modern young
man whether in the high school or out
OF it. Because of lack of proper and
sufficient drill in the schools, graduates
are less and less able to express their
thoughts in correct, forcible and fluent
English. Because of the multiplicity of
modern ''isms" and 'sogics'' homely sub
Jects like grammar, rhetoric, history and
geography are crowded to the wall, and
graduates show lamentable ignorance of
the history of their nation and state. In
other words what they will have the
most occasion to use in after life thew
know the least about We do not CON
tend that the modern curriculum should
be Shon of its modernism, but that there
should be retained as prominent part
of it the best of the old features, under
which the youth of former generations
attained to usefulness and greatness.
And then there is the much mooted
question about moral training. Some
contend that all moral and religious in
struction of the young should be left to
the home and the church, and sure it is
that most of it is left to somebody. In
some rrlaceS it seems almost against the
unwritten law that the Almighty or the
Scriptures should be mentioned in any
way for fear individuals of some sect will
be offended. While morality is based on
religion, we believe it is possible to
teach morality without being Extensively
sectarian. Character is based upon
morality, and young people cannot launch
their frail crafts upon the turbulent sea
| of life with too much character. The
common school cannot be sectarian. vet
we believe it can and should teach moral
ity.
DR.. Lyman Abbott recently delivered
lecture before the Lowell Institute in
Boston in which he took an advanced