Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1907-01-08

The best teacher will always be the one
who has not only the fullest measure of
ripened scholarship, but also the equip
ment and experience of man OF the
world. We have always with us not
only the problem of how to teach youth,
but also the problem of how TO teach
the teachers
81 made inquiry once of high school
student as to what he was doing and he
told me that ne had just spent three
days with the class in dissecting an
angleworm No doubt an accurate
knowledge of angleworms is valuable,
especially to one who recognizes IN the
angleworm friend of the piscatorial
art, but | would not call this knowledge
necessity in the art of making llv-
ing.
THE UNIVERSITY COMMENDED.
'We can have nothing but COM
mendation for the work the university
| is doing along certain special lines. L
refer more particularly to the work
of the college of law, the engineering
department, and the college of agri-
culture with its various auxiliary
methods. These branches of univer-
sity training are profoundly practical.
| An important branch of work is the
| farmers course which is carried on
| through lectures, addresses and DEM
| onstrations.
Il notice that in a report from the
university a somewhat apologetlcal
reference is made to branch OF work
! designed to teach women housekeeping
accomplishments. 1t is argued in the
report that this is not beneath the
! dignity of the university. In educa-
| tional competition with other branches
| this work is certainly entitled to hon.
| orabie mention, even it it be not
awarded the blue ribbon
1--WE owe to false standards of
| scholarship the offensive phrase
higher education The term assumes
that there is lower education, not
so valuable, and of plebian caste. The
education of plowmen and woodmen,
who have worked out their problem
of life, of school boy on the hard
| benches of the country school, who
| learns to think and to do, to give his
Imagination wings, and peer into the
| great world through the kingdom OF
books, is as worthy and dear as the
higher priced and more snowy learning
| of the university dressed in all its trite
vocabulary of ornate phrases.
''To teach youth to think, to develop
character, to grapple with difficulty
| and overcome it, to bear faithfully
the unnumbered burdens heaped upon
our fallen humanity, is surely the nigh
| est test of an education. 1t is because
we have somewhat drifted from these
| standards that we should pause and
| consider and take account OF what we
have and of what we are doing We
must protect our schools, large and
small, from the faddist who ranges
through all the arts and sciences for
new devices adapted to stutfing saw
dust and old junk into the heads OF
the young; from the mere pendant who
| parrotlike himself, makes parrots of
his pupils, from the politician who
| lives to make our schools and the funds
set apart for their support mere pawns
in his game of politics.
POLITICS A BAD INFLUENCE.
''Some of these banal influences have
| been felt in our university. | believe
that it would be better for the univer-
sity if it were located farther from the
capital where it could be free from the
influence of that petty, sordid and Of
| tentimes malodorous officialdom that
infests all capital cities, where there
would be no opportunity for students
to become part of any political ma
chine, aud where none of them could be
placed on the pay rolls of the state for
the purpose of promoting the political
| fortunes of any politician or political
party by receiving public money that
| they did not earn There should be no
subtle lesson of the dignity of graft
taught from the university. It's gospel
should be the dignity of LABOR, the dig
nifty of giving honest work for an honest
| recompense.
! ''There is much fault in the man
agement of the university, but it is
hard to locate the responsibility for
| this management. Theoretically the
regents govern the university, and re-
gents are sometimes selected for per-
| sonal fitness and sometimes for polit-
ical fitness This board is usually an
eminently respectable body of men
who do not employ themselves in
acute supervision of the university.
Theoretically the president of the uni
versity is considerable of czar. Prac-
tically he cannot do much without the
consent of the faculty and the faculty
does as it pleases, not even being de-
TERED from this course by fear of
legislative Investigations. Legislative
investigations are always apt to lose
some of their terrors in the whitewash
/ pdII. oO you udNt a SYSTEM VI SoNoI II
ment that does not govern, of super
vision that does not supervise, of in
| vestigation that does not investigate. of
final authority that it not final, and
with no complete responsibility placed
anywhere. You cannot wonder con-
ditions are not always ideal. think a
dictatorship over the university would
be best, provided the dictator was big
enough for the place.
DO not understand me as indis-
criminately criticising our educational
| systems or our educational institutions.
They are doing much good No mans
equipment can be said to be complete
without their advantages. 1t should be
| our aim to Danish from this system
caste, wooden formulas, empirical
pedantry, and every element of that
closet creed which unduly letters and
cramps individualism Danish such
terms as the higher education and
discipline of the mind Don't teach
fool things or worthless things solely
for the purpose of distributing the
mind"