The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-06-08
SCHOOL DAYS.

A man grown up is often wildly reminded of
days gone by by some incident which attracts hard
ly the passing notice of the world. Last week the
press dispatches told of the death of Albert Hank
ness, professor emeritus at Brown university. Com
paratively few there are today who know of Pro
fessor Hardness, yet only few years ago "Hark=
ness Latin Grammar was standard text book in
the high schools and colleges of the country, and
thousands of young Americans who struggled
through "amo amas, amat," will never forget the
green broad covers and the nightmare of the Latin
conjugations between them. We may forget the
conjugations and the simple rules laid down in the
book, and the many exceptions to those rules may
long ago have gone into oblivion, but the youth
who passed creditable examination in Latin gram
did it as the result of hard work, and he learned
to think for himself as a result Hardness showed
royal road to knowledge; his was no play study
it was based on the principle that what was worth
while was worthy of study and hard work Today
Hardness is in the curriculum. A few
books may be found on the top shelves of second
hand book Stores laid away carelessly in cellars
covered with dust in attcs that escape the house
cleaner. In place of his books we have shortcut
systems which may simplify the study of Latin. but
cannot stir the mind to action like the books of the
venerable professor who has just gone on.
Whatever may be the public opinion, if there is
any, concerning the od-time system of hard work
in education and the modern system which makes
the requirement of knowledge matter of play
and school life time to pass in dreams, there is
doubt that the standard of scholarship under the
improved methods is not raised Perhaps the newer
ideas place the benefits of schooling before many
from such cryptic works as Hardness Latin books
but the question is often suggested, Are we not
educating ncompetents, spelling good ditch dig
gers to make poor teachers? Is it the province of
education to give our youth mass of unavoidable
and disordered facts or to provide pabu-
lum for capable minds to digest while those ncapa-
BILE shall be left behind in the running? Is the in
divdual benefited by education which units him
for manual labor, when his natural endowments
furnish all too inadequate foundation upon which
to base any hope for original thinking? There is
work in the world to do, and we cannot all be mas
tiers of art Literature and music are as necessary
as sewers in city, and man capable of great
things in any of these lines is almost necessarily
barred from accomplishing much in the Others
Why therefore, should the requirement of an
education be simplifed? Adequate provision should
be made that all might learn the rudiments of En-
gsh and sufficient arithmetic to guarantee the
ability of every to compute his own business
with his fellows. Beyond these things,
to the highest education and learning there is no
reason why hard work and ability should not be the
only royal road to success. False ideas of what
they owe to society are engendered by the indis-
criminate smplifcation of studies, and students
become mere reflections of the thought of their
teachers and text books.
But let us not be misunderstood We believe
thoroughly in education-of the heart and the mind
and the hand-and we heartily commend the desire
IF every boy and girl who is willing to work to get