BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1904-09-27
EDITORIAL

i ne SCHOOLS are HOW III AuIA w
and once more the teachers labors
have commenced. :,
The importance and solemn1ty OF
this occasion should be felt by all, tor
it is net merely from today that the
true significance of the school is telt
by the people, nor is the custom OF
celebrating its inauguration new one.
The custom itself is beautiful. The
dav upon which teacher and pupil
again take up their work together
should be day of rejoicing, and it has
an unequalled importance for society,
for the community and tor the nation.
Few celebrations can be as imposing
as this one which marks the opening
of the school year, for it is in the school
that the rising generations acquire the
habits of industry, those requirem ents
which most fit them for the struggle
Of life; where they learn the history of
their country, the lives and deeds OF
their great men, the beauty and purl-
tv of those ideals toward which the
human race is ever striving to reach,
but which seem ever to be unattaina-
Bile, The school is the food of thought
and the training of the soul In the
school the first associations, SO ne
cessary III after life, are formed, for
the primal idea of the infantlle mind
of associated beings is the family, and
the school has the task of teaching the
relationship of the human family and
the duty of man toward man. The
school is, finally, the continuation of
the home, into which come the men OF
the future. forming ties of friendship
which are often as pding as those of
the family and last throughout life.
This is the school of the present; this
was, this has been the school of the
past. The school of the future may be
more stately and imposing, but it will
always owe its beauty add sublmlty
to the frmness of the foundation stone
upon which the lofty edi6ce is reared.
Aud the teachers, and the pupils, and
the men of that day when the school
shall have reached its highest grand
eur, who shall ridicule the school of to-
day or condemn the present system as
worthless, will be guilty of the gross
est sin of ingrat1tude.
The improvement in ideas and SyS-
TENS will be bat the natural outcome
of the selection of the best along the
road of progress, stopped heie and
there by accidents or obstacles which
for at time may cause the steady ad-
vance to falter, only to resume its in
terrupted way over the obstacle over
thrown or the pitfall avoided, with a
greater security and higher contd
of4 1f
supreme and final end upon which
the hopes Of all men and of civilization
itself are based.
We long for the future, but with no
belittling or scornful words for that
past which supports the structure OF
the present.
We can await with confidence the
conditions which time, not man, Will
bring about; conditions which will be
the result of the united labors Of the
whole, for nations of a high order of
civtliz alton. nor men destined for re-
noWn in science or the uplifting OF |
arts and trades, are not produced in |
five or ten or even twenty years.
The Improvement Of race demands
a work beyond expression, and one
that cannot be appreciated by these
newest pedagogueS witt the ink scar
cely dried on their diplomas.
Bring to a people who are not yet
ready to received it, the highest form |
of culture, the latest systems OF teach
ing. in a word progress in its most
modern form; carry to the blanket !
tribes of the Colorado, not The Amerl-
can system of pedagogy. but some
thing even more perfected and advan-
ced, the latin system, and see INV,
against the barbarity Of a race sub
merged for centuries in the depths OF
ignorance, all the lessons and systems
of pedagogy ever invented avail tor
nothing.
A very baleful influence is often
brought about, unconsciously perhaps,
by public speakers, which becomes es-
peclally dangerous when it invades
the school room.
The public speaker of the present
has but Que idea, to cajole and coax
his audience; whether on the stump |
in legislative halls or in the school
room.
In the school-room, children are told
that they are the hope and main stay
r - cotton that as SaViOrS of their |