The Springfield herald., 1904-10-14
LACKING IN EDUCATION.
Present Methods Declared to Be \
Failure by an Expert.

Failure by an Expert.
Prof. Barrett Wendell's article on
Our National Superstition" in the
North American Review will be read
with profound interest by all who are
interested in the education of Amerl-
can youth. Americans believe that our
national salvation depends upon edu
cation and in that belief they spend
vast sums upon schools ard colleges.
What kind of education do these in
stitutions impart? The answer which
Prof. Wendell gives to that question
Is discouraging. is even appalling. He
was for years member of a commit
tee In Harvard whose duty it was to
scrutiniZe the qualifications of stu
dents from other colleges who de-
sired to become candidates for de-
grees at Harvard and his testimony is
that the committee were frequently
confronted with bachelors of arts who
seemed virtually uneducated. In the
course of his experience, also, it has
seemed to him that the boys who
reach college from preparatory
schools are proving fiabbier and fab
bier in mind.
This phenomenon Prof. Wendell re-
CARDS as proof of the failure of the
new methods of education, whereby,
after the fashion of the kindergarten.
the pupil is permitted to confine him
self to subjects which interest him.
such methods make no provision for
the training of the will, and it is the
faculty of voluntary. as distinct from
spontaneous, attention which educa-
tion. in the broad sense, ought surely
to cultivate. Looked at from this
point of view, the classics and mathe-
mates were better instruments of
education than for long time many
people have supposed them to be.
Prof. Wendell says:
You can hardly imagine a subject.
essentially uninteresting. which would
not reward plodding work with siml-
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
mostly from the accident that they are
traditional. AS a natural consequence
they have acquired. through the cen-
turtles, 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 as vagrant. II 1t 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 repellently lifeless, is
part OF the secret of their educational
vitality.
"of late years 1t has often been sup
posed that training in natural sciencel
would do more for the power of vol
untary 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 reason why it has not am dis
posed to think, is because the natural
sciences are apt nowadays to prove
shade too interesting. In the end, ac-
cordingly. like other alluring things,
they often excite an attention more
nearly spontaneous than voluntary.
II SO, the study of them would inevi-
tably result rather in technical infor-
nation and habitual aptitude of
special kind than in any broad general
training, available for any other ser
vice than that Immediately con-
cerned."