Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1907-11-27
PRACTICAL THOUGHTS
Suggestions Concerning Work of
Our Public Schools.
Address of Welcome by DIR. S. E. Hassell
at County School Board Con-
vention.

NAOALAOAAOAs hOPO JO0 VIII
pardon me for appearing before
you in this capacity. That embodi-
ment of activity and devotion, the
fulfllment of the law, our county
superintendent is the guilty man
and you must settle with him. He
is a man who will not take no for an
answer. We are here to be ad-
mOnished, to be dicipIined. Long
time ago I remember reading
of two children crossing a pasture.
Upon noticing an enraged animal ap-
preaching them in furious manner
and the children running frantically
to find a place of safety, the little girl
called on her brother to pray. He
said he did not know what to say,
She in reply told him to say what
father says before meals. With
tears coursing down his cheeks he
cried: "Oh Lord, for what we are
about to receive make us truly
thankful"
Realizing that the rod and re-
proof give wisdom, we gracefully
bow to the fulfllment of the law.
Before the period of chastisement
we wish TO observe something con-
nected with our public school sys-
tenn. While our public school sys-
tenn is grand and glorious and fruit
ful and far reaching, yet it is want
ing in some respects. Some months
ago an eminent educator asked the
question: What is the matter
with our common schools?' The
answer from a similar source was,
and is "our common schools are not
common enough" Considering
earnestly the matter we find cause
for the question and truth in the
answer. To be up-to- date we must
call the cause germs" The active
and most alarming germ that is in
feeting our syste M of schools, as
well as our financial system and our
nervous prosperity is the germ
strenuOsity, or unrelaxed nerve
tension.
It is a condition that is char
aoteristic of our day and generation
and is dangerous. Reaction is
inevitable and results more or less
deplorable. These results stamped
with uncertainty developing nerv-
GUS existence in our schools and
also out of them that has a marked
tendency to drift and does drift
into the realms of imagination and
deluslon, and too often beyond the
confines of sanity, and too frequent
lY making the life of man a tragedy.
'"Tis true and pity tits tits true"
Our common school life is too in
tense.
While strenuOsity is stimulating
and adds to the brilliancy of the
mind, the growing and tender body
is continuously taxed, and this con-
dition carried over gives us a stream
Of life that is under mortgage, hence
the unfortunates.
In our mad rush to get there and
to get them there, our children
especially in the high school are
there too often to graduate instead
of to learn; there to imagine and
to memorize rather then to reason.
Too often our high schools be-
come factories, turning out grad
yates like peas in a pod to feed the
higher institutions. It Is a serious
mistake. 90 per cent of the grad
yates do not go beyond the high
schools, therefore, we are doing too
much for the ten per cent aud not
enough for the 80 per cent.
Primarily our high schools are COM
mon schools, and must be consider
ed common schools for the common
good
The funet OF our com mon
schools is foundation work strictly,
and must be comprehensive de-
veloping, not q part of the whole,
but the entire plastic child and
student. We must not forget the
trinity of childhood, the physical,
the moral and mental parts. In
our formative work we must not
emphasize one part at the expense
of the other parts. Child building
Is serious, but grand, and It pays
The proper study of mankind is
man" in his entirety and should
begin and continue in our common
schools.
DIR. Holmes was not a man of
imagination, but a man of dis
eernment and keen logic. and when
he uttered that undying truth that
the education of the child should
begin 200 years before birth he
gave us an idea pregnant with
possibilities. What q Burbank has