Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1904-12-28
LACKING IN EDUCATION.
Present Method Declared to Be Fail.
nre by an Expert. 81

ure by an Expert.
Professor Barrett Wendells arSicle
on "Our National Superstition" In the
North American Review will be read
with profound interest by all who. are
interested in the education of Ameri-
can youth. Americans believe that our
national salvation depends upon edu-
cation and in that belief they spend
vast sums upon schools and colleges.
What kind of education do these insti-
tutions impart? The answer which
Professor Wendell gives to that Ques-
ton is discouraging, is even appalling.
He was for years a member of COM
mittee in Harvard whose duty 1t was
to scrutinize the qualifications Of stu
dents from other colleges who desired
to become candidates for degrees at
Harvard and his testimony is that the
committee were frequently confronted
with bachelors of arts who seemed vir-
tually uneducated In the course Of
his experience, also, Ii has seemed to
him that the boys who reach college
from preparatory schools are proving
fiabbier and fabbier in mind.
This phenomenon Professor Wendell
regards as proof of the failure OF
tbs new methods of education, where
by, after the fashion of the kindergar-
ten. the pupil is permitted to conflne
himself to subjects which interest
him. Such methods make no provi.
sion for the training of the will, and II
is the faculty of voluntary, as distinct
from spontaneous, attention which
education, in the broad sense. ought
surely to cultivate. Looked at from
this point of view, the classics and
mathematics were better instruments
of education than for long time
many people have supposed them to
be. Professor Wendell says:
You can hardly imagine subject,
essentially uninteresting, which would
not reward plodding work with siini-
lar result-with substantial ignorance
of the matter studied, but with In
creasingly and lastingly muscular
power Of voluntary attention. The
only actual practical virtue which lies
in the traditional subjects comes most
ly from the accident that they nre
traditional. As natural consequence
they have acquired, through the CEN
turtles, a degree Of precision not yet
attained by any rivals. Even unsym-
pathetic and unintelligent teachers
can, therefore, keep closer watch Of
them. II the attention of boys who
study classics or mathematics begins
to wander, it can instantly be per-
ceived us vagrant. If it errs. its err
rors can swiftly and certainly be cor
rected. And the very fact that the
classical languages are dead, and that
the distractions of mathematics must
generally seem repellcntly lifeless, is
part of the secret of their educational
vitality.
.Of late years 1t has often been sup
posed that training In natural science
would do more for the power OF yolun-
tary attention and therefore would
have higher educational value than
training in the old humanities. So far
as my observation has gone, this has
not yet proved the case. And one rea-
son why 1t has rot. am dis .,osed to
think, is because the natural sciences
are apt nowadays to prove shade too
interesting. In the end. accordingly,
like other alluring things. they often
excite an attention more nearly spon-
taneous than voluntary. II SO, the
study of them would inevitably result
rather in technical information and
habitual aptitude of special kind
than in my broad general training,
available for any other service than
that Immediately concerned"