The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-06-11
EDUCATIONAL COLUMN.
Current Events. Their Use in School
Work.

The phrase, "The newspaper is 8
great educator" is almost as old as
newspapers. The actual use Of tho
newspapers by educators is almost as
recent-well, say as the first column
sensation in the morning daily; sc
long does the natural conservatism
of the human mind hold in check the
practical development of a new idea.
Usually the larger the idea, the great.
er the inertia of custom to be over
come.
Still more ancient and venerable are
the axioms, "The school is a prepare
ton for life, " and Experience is the
best teacherv. - Here again, how
ever, comes in that queer mental trick
of ours of saying one thing and doing
another.
"In critical moments we all realize
that the only discipline that stands
by us, the only training that becomes
intuition, is that got through life
itself but the school has been so set
apart, so isolated from the ordinary
conditions and motives of life, that
the place where the children are sent
for discipline is the one place in the
world most difficult to get experience
the mother of all discipline worthy
the name.
l am quoting from memory one
of the ablest and boldest representa-
tives of the new education, Prof
John Dewey Of the University of
Chicago.
Whatever the faults of the newspa-
per, it is the great source of informa-
tion about the things the world is do
ing and how it is doing them in 9TH
er words, it is organized experience.
The school, then, being a prepare
ion for life, experience the best teach
er, and the newspapers the greatest of
all purveyors of experience, one would
have said, "The newspaper is one of
the first things the schools will make
use of " As a matter of fact it has
been one of the last. The chief diff
Guilty, aside from the inertia of old
established methods, at once suggests
itself; namely, that the educative por-
tions of the newspaper are not plain
enough for school use, and the harm.
full featurs are too plain. Add to this
that the daily paper is too bulky and
inconvenient in shape for preserva-
ton, and is not edited with a view to
its connection with regular school
work, and the fact that the editor and
fore co-operated TO any important ex-
tent is less difficult to understand
Until quite recently such attention
as has been given in the schools to the
news of the day has consisted mainly
of compilations from the daily press
during morning exercises or in other
odds and ends of time III the school
day-of miscellaneous items about
everything III general and nothing in
particular. This was called study
ing current events, and bore the
same relation to the true study of cur
rent events that the mere memorizing
of names and dates bears to the true
study of History. Now, however, it
is beginning to be recognized that the
right conception of the educational
value of what is called news is
not to teach it as separate study
to load another branch upon an
already overloaded list-but to use it
to teach most, if not all, of the other
studies. To learn the location, eli
mate, physical and political features
and products of a country in connec.
ton with great and dramatic events
taking ,place there-the war in South
Africa, the uprising in China, the
treaty between England and Japan,
the establishment of the Australian
commonw ealth, for example-all and
much more information than can be
taught by rote in the ordinary method
of studying Geography-is so plainly
the best and most economical eXpendi.
ture of the mental effort Of teacher
and pupil that only its obvious nature
has so long kept it from being recog.
n1zed.
Genius says some paradoxical
philosopher, is the art of seeing the
obvious. Genius is rare.
The same reasoning applies to the
study of History, Civics, Language
in short, to the whole curriculum
If the studies of the school are indeed
preparation for life, it ought not tC
be difficult to prove it in other word,
to find abundant instances in real lift
to which they apply. Without sucf
Instances it is hard to see how tn,
child is going to get anything like tn,
good he should get out of these stud
les The fact that he has been left t,
acquire the most valuable part of hi
education-a knowledge of the worlC
after he left school has been tn
fundamental weakness, the standin,
source of criticism, of the school sys
TEN. The aim has been as far as pos
sible to deaden the walls to the sound
of life. When the distinction between
the proper function of hospital an,
school is fully understood, we ma
say with Mirabeau: La revolution
c'est accomplish" - Francis B. AT
kinson in Journal of Education
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