The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-06-04
Not Extension, But Change
The Mere Lenthenng of the School Term From Four
to Eight Months Will not Meet the Needs
of the Children of the South.
(By j. o. Egg gleston, Jr.)

TOUR months to a term of eight or nine
months. will not meet the needs of the
children OF the South. We may well call
our present systems Societies for the
encouragement of Emigration from the
Country to the Cities or Associations
for the Atrophy of Natural Talents"
A few years ago certain good hearted
but wrong headed school teachers from
the North came South and endeavored
10 elevate the negro by teaching him
Latin and Greek; that is, by giving him
mere book education. We have. in
speech and print, held these misguided
efforts up to unmeasured scorn. and all
the while We have been attempting to do
the same thing with the children, white
and black. The so-called education that
We are giving them has barely speaking
acquaintance with their future occupa-
tions, has few points of contact with the
duties OF everyday life, fails to meet
the needs and underlined aspirations of
fifteen out OF twenty of the children
and consequently permits precious oppor-
tunities to go to waste. The idea-if
there is any idea about it-seems to be
that every pillow boy can be turned into
a great orator and go to the Legislature
and become Governor, President, or be-
come a doctor or a lawyer or a preach
er and that every girl can become the
wife OF a Governor or President. Our
whole system-for it is practically one
throughout the South-is an encourage
ment towards these professions and
encouragement towards enabling a boy
TO become what God intended him to be.
God doesn't do anything without a pur-
pose. and He surely would not waste
talents by placing them in boys and girls
unless He wished these talents to have
a full development Our present educa-
tion in the country schools causes con-
tinual struggle between the aptitudes of
the child on the one side, and our di-
vine Three r system on the other.
The material possibilities OF the South
are unreasonable. Our present edu1a
tional policy-if we really have any con-
scious policy-will not develop these pos
sbilities into actualities. 1t retards the
development: it miseducates the majority
of the children out OF their proper en-
vironment; it makes a child dissatisfied
with his present environment without
showing him how to improve this envi-
ronment: it therefore encourages him to
emigrate il he has any spirit in him. and
thus tends to destroy the neighborhood in
which he has been reared: because de-
struction will come upon any neighbor-
hood that encourages its best young peo
pie to leave it. Dissatisfaction with
present conditions is necessary prelude
TO the desire to improve those conditions.
A proper education produces exactly this
frame of mind. But there is something
radically wrong with system that dis
satisfies without encouraging the desire
TO improve
The sytem of education needed every
where is one that actively and sympa-
thetically touches the social and econo-
mic life of every community over which
it extends. The educational process should
include the child's life out of school as
well as in school, it should be a constant
action and reaction of the individual and
his environment.
DR.. Octavius Bates says that boy in
the far South was asked recently, DO
they teach you anything at school about
fsrming?" 81 can teach iem all about
that myself" he replied, Il can hoe cot
ron and drop corn And that is the con-
ception of the average man about the
matter. When he has reached the drop
corn" stage he knows 'all about it.
There is nothing more for him to learn.
And so we job along with dropping
corn civilization and at "hoeing cot
tom pace And nine out of ten of our
country schools are doing nothing to
meet and remedy these conditions. AS
Dr.. Bates aptly says, the subjects now
taught in the country public schools have
so little to do with the actualities OF
homelfe that they are mere exotics. The
school should touch every interest in
the community. Its tendrils should reach
out and anticipate every movement OF
the social whole. There should be con-
slant action and reaction between the life
OF the school and the life of the commu-
nifty in which the school is located The
underlying principles of every interest in
the community should be studied in the
schools of that community as having a
direct bearing ON these interests.
Last December l visited school where
manual training was taught in connec-
ton with the books. Most of the arith
metic and geometry was learned in the
manual Observation-Disclosures it can be
learned Ave times as well and five times
as rapidly as from the book. saw
set of drawing boards-plain, simple
boards on which the boys place their
paper while making mechanical drawings
.Who makes these?" | asked. The
BOYS" was the reply. What is the imam
rial gain?" | asked. "a board like that
bought at the store costs Is cents, was
the reply. 1.-The raw material costs Is
cents. The financial gain is 81 cents out
OF the rs" The educational gain is the
mower to make the drawing board, and the
knowledge of the difference between raw
material and material with brains in it
I saw a drawing table and asked the
same question. THAT table finished III
hard oil is worth $500 at the store. me
raw material costs us % cents, and we
make the table" I noticed that iron
braces held the tables to the moor TO
make them immovable. How about these
braceso" 1 asked "Oh, We make them
at our little blacksmith shop A pair
q, them costs So cents, but we get the
scrap iron for IL SIS cents and make
them
But it is said that this would make
all Of our men carpenters, blacksmlths,
etc Not at all. The object is not to make
all our men blacksmiths and carpenters,
hut TO make all our blacksmiths and car
penters men, We should make gooo
lawyer-and not poor farmer-out OF the
-, u,boSa ATTITUDE is for the law. We