Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-09-22
Who DARES TO SHEER
At Supt. ChanceIIor's Hiqh-
Browed Queries?
ONE WAS A SOCKDOLAGER
And Was Hurled at Poor Dizzy
Teacher.
AN OLD RESIDENT TALKS
Says Some Real Sarcastic Things
About Education of the Essential
ly Modern Brand.

Seldom have I been more deeply
grieved," said a venerable Washingtonian
to reporter of The Star, than l was yes
terday when 1 read in the New York Sun
brief letter from some ribald scoffer of
this city who finds nothing better to do
with his time than to use it in poking fun
at the Districts school system as now con-
Quoted.
This impairment person, in his out
rageous communication which the Sun
labeled Culture in Washington quoted
question asked of teachers in their exam
nations. and appeared to think that the
mere reproduction of the sentence, without
any comment whatever would be sufficient
| to arouse inextingushable laughter, such
as once re-echoed on the heights of Mount
Olympus I could see nothing ludicrous
about it, for it is in line with the lofty
pane of educational perfection imported to
Washington by the distinguished scholar
and pedagogical expert whose great native
talent and acquired attachments are de-
voted at intervals, to the task OF superin-
tending the city schools The question, 1t
seems to me, would strike the most casual
reader as one calculated to bring from any
teacher a reply that would at ONCE show
his fitness to guide and instruct our young
people, or demonstrate that he should at
once be thrust into outer darkness, there
| to mediate upon the Intellectual short
comings which precluded him from making
| the correct answer to an Interrogation at
| once SO simple and so soul-searching.
Here's the Jawbreaker.
Here is the question: What do you con-
slider the relative Importance of the uni
versatility of time and space?
Have we not here the essence Of peda-
gogy? With children in plenty It is easy
enough to have schools. All you've got
to do Is to close-herd the long-sufter
infants. tell them that 1t is the thing to
go to school and do as teacher says since
that has been the practice since time
was. But when all that Is done what
have you got? Nothing but a plain, every
day school with teachers teaching things.
There used to be hundreds and thou
sands of schools like that In fact, there
weren't any other kind. And what was
the result? A lot of youngsters who
knew how to read and write, spell and
figure; prime ministers and poets at the
age of twenty-three Evidently this was
menace to the established order Of
things. There weren't enough ropes
fastened On to education. 1t was lying
around loose where anybody could get
II,
and pupils sometimes SO speedily ac-
quired a sound foundation for the erec-
ton of learning that they outstripped
their masters. This was a crying scandal.
Where did the universally of time and
space come in? Nowhere. And the teach
ers opinion Of the comparative value Of
these distractions from the concrete
was. more often than not, a minus guam
tity.
Such Appalling Barbarity.
Glib mastery of the shibboleth Of the
metaphysical alphabet, SO that Matter Is
conditioned In time and space may fall
trippingiy from the tongue. while the mind
carries the profound conviction that the
infinitely unconditional Is absolute, is now
one Of the prime requisites of teachers
equipment. The sooner cavaliers at the
city's educational system learn that the
schools are absolutely apart from real life
the better. 1t is the lofty mission of the
accomplished superintendent Of schools to
lift his pupils and his teachers from the
sordid plane Of the world of every day.
Materially minded utilitarians cannot COM
prehend the grandeur Of this attitude, and
1t is undoubtedly from the pen of one of
these unsympathetic critics that the Suns
gibe at DR.. Chancellors question comes.
THE first thing we know some Goth will
be demanding that an educational system
be devised to assure parents that the grad
yates from our high schools will know how
to write, spell, do simple sums in arith-
metic and be able to speak their own Ian
quage correctly. Such barbarity is ap-
palling."