Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-26
FADs IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
New York Children Studying Tying
Knots, Braiding and Making Doilies.

From t .e Philadelphia Ledger
The war which some members of the New
York board of education and many of the
teachers in the schools, who are believed
to represent an overwhelming majority of
the parents of the pupils of that city. are
waging for the application of some common
sense to the curriculum in the elementary
public schools is of interest to every city in
the country. The fight which the New York
opponents of fads are carrying on must be
taken up sooner or later in every large city.
If the fight is won in New York, as 1t
will be eventually. other cities will follow,
and the idea that the elementary schools
are primarily for the purpose of affording
to the ordinary pupil the opportunity to
gain thorough grounding in the funda-
mentals, and not for the purpose of peda-
gogical experimentation. will finally be i'm
pressed on boards of education and educa-
tors.
The impetus was given in the present in
stance to the opposition in New York by
the attack in the New York legislature on
the superintendent of New York city schools
by Prof. Tomkins of Columbia University.
Prof. Tomkins alluded to the superintend-
ent "fitful and fanciful fakir,'' and
held the common school curriculum up to
ridicule. Some of Prof. TOmkins' state
ments were incorrect. but the curriculum is
sufficiently ridiculous to sustain the point
of the school reformers.
For the first three years a large part of
the time of both boys and girls is taken
up with Sewing and constructive work. "
The course begins with the tying of knots.
and continues for three years with Sewing,
raffia work, simple braidng. sewing of
seams weaving, instruction on fibres and
textiles, braiding. basting. running and
stitching The young idea is taught to
shoot at .hese materials. among others:
Cord, raffia, laces, buttons, tapes, thread.
needles thimoles, looms, knitting cotton,
Worsted rug yarns, denim, felt and cotton
CLOTH" and the hopeful pupils must produce
braided reins, belts, spool cases, doilies, but
ton bags and many other things too nume-
rous to name The "over handing stitch Is
not neglected, nor is the accomplishment of
weaving on small looms forgotten.
There are many people who would say
that children must be amused, and that
there must be breaks in the regular duties
in order that the minds of small children
should be relaxed, but 1t must not be for
gotten that under this extraordinary sys-
tenn there is provision made for not only
musical instruction extending over the en-
tire seven years of tho course but recesses,
organized games as part of the curricu-
lum, opening exercises, nature study,
science. physiology, hygiene, drawing and
constructive work and other things. includ-
ing reading, writing. arithmetic, geography,
history, science and the like.
No one denies the possible value of sew
ing, even Tor boys, or or the studies OF tex
tiles, or of the exercise in combining col
ors or of any of the multifarious studies
or amusementS or games or fadS which
have been forced into the curriculum; but
common sense is revolving against the at
tempt to crowd all of these things into a
limited time which could be profitably given
to the doing of the necessary things we'll
The indictment which the opposition to the
fad Idea brings against the stuffed cur
riculum' is quite overwhelming. Judged by
results, the stuffing process is a lamentable
failure in New York any everywhere else.
THE system crowds the children so much
that they forget one thing in learning an
other The children are deficient In SPELL
ing, in arithmetic, in writing and in every
thing which they should know and know
well. The music course is so technical that
not one child in ten can read music after
devoting much time to music study for
seven years, and so on down the list. All
the children have miserable smatter of
many things and they all incompetent
and uneducated. And 1t is not alone in
what they do not learn that the system is
vicious; it dissipates the attention and rem
ders the pupil incapable of really gripping
a thing and mastering 1T.
That is the charge against the evolution
of the American public school where the
science of pedagogics has had full swing.
The American public schools are doing a
great work; many of them are good, but
there is every reason to believe they would
be of greater benefit to the pupils and to
the nation If pedagogics should be tempered
with little more common sense.