The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-03

Think. wilt thou let it slip useless
 away?
 Thomas Carlyle.
 Among German educators there is. it is said. a growing opposition to the tendency that has prevailed TOT the last ten years to make the work Tn the secondary schools less. and make the duller pupils set the pace of pro- gress for the brighter ones. People or influence there are affirming that 1t is an Injustice to those more glfted students. The plan proposed is to have separate schools which they term elite schools" for talented pupils" The precious time in early youth spent in getting the amount of education dealt out in the schools, be they public or private, 1 Sd deplorable waste. Be ginning with the learning of the a, b, c's, say at six years of age, any bright child who is taught proper ap- plication ought to acquire the pro- in nine years. That seems time enough devoted to getting the brain ready to begin life and real study for which the text books days are supposed to prepare one. No healthy child with well directed energy should be SO man. aged as to spend from six to nineteen getting through the public schools. It
 
 spend a third of quite a long life in the drudgery of preparatory education. Some of the difficulty Is due to the spirit of the average teacher who is more bent on seeming a wonder of in formation to the pupil than on simpli- | flying study in such way as to reach the young brain by the quickest route. Many a study Is painfully erksome to the student that could by little 1 stopping on the part of the teacher | be made as interesting as fairy tale. and some day perhaps a teacher will make hit by throwing aside the puffed up attitude that so often has such narrowness behind it and in common sense way telling his pupils | that two times two Is four without muddling the child's brain by ram bling circuitous route and great truths are as an open book once some great | mind has discovered them. In mathe- matics the thory of limitations and all the rest once dug out of the chaos | of the unknown by some great deliver is easy to tell as simple addition if the teacher and pupil can get close enough together. When the great | Servis digs out the Phenomina of the Midnight sun of Norway it can be told with the greatest ease Once the great ones have measured the distance to the stars the method can be easily told. 1t took a master mind to discover that the earth Is round, and immortal fame is the reward the world gives for the discovery, but with a good teacher and an apple a child can see in a moment that it is, and understand how the fact | was discovered.
 | The teacher Is too prone to making mysterious problems of matters that | could be so. simplified as to make first | impr sions on the infant mind that would last through life. Once truth reaches a mind in all its nakedness 1t
 is ever more.a part of that mind.
 Oh that the instructor would allow | the truths to go by shorter roads! That a human being would be given
 more of life in which to use the knowl-
 edge of the existence of the great
 truths facts and principles! | In speaking of the demand in Ger
 many for separate schools for gifted
 pupils a writer in Chicago paper | says:
 The most pronounced supporter of | this demand Is Dr. J. Petzboldt of the gymnasium at Spandau, in a brochure entitled 'Sonderschulen fur hervorra- gend Befahigte.' from a psychological and pedagogical standpoint, he shows the harm done to the brighter students by compelling them to follow a course that is gauged for the abilities of the mediocre, and tries to prove that a gifted boy could finish the regular course of a full secondary school in six instead of nine years. and thus pos sibly enter the university at the early age of fifteen or sixteen. The bro chure even gives practical hints as to the way in which these special schools | are to be conducted Prof. Bruno l Meyer of Berlin. also an educator, dis | cusses this project in detail in a series of articles that have appeard in the scientific Beliage of the Munich Allge- meine Zeitung (Nos. 141-142) In his estimation, the plan Is not so bad, but will meet with great difficulties in be- | ing realized. One of the most serious l he finds to be securing the proper teaching corps for such special schools i; but he believes the problem Is per-
 manently raised, and must be worked out by educators. He closes with the l