The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-24
IMPORTANCE Of
MANUAL TRAINING
Raskin Looks Ahead and Sees
the Place Reserved for
Man Who Does.
advertiser Correspondence. Copyright
by Frederic ]. Haskin.)


pupils in American schools as there
are now people in the country Great
as the increase in numbers will be,
the richest promise Of proc ress is in
the Improvement of the quality of eeu-
cation. Readin, 'ritin and 'rithme-
tic VIII always be the foundations of
! learning, but the educational world is
breaking away from the tyranny of
the academy. To teach the children of
! men how to do, as We'll as how to
know, is the duty of the teacher of the
future. That sturdy old Scot, James
Wilson, who is Secretary of Agricul-
ture and one Of the greatest of living
educators, said that he could get all
the Yale and Hazard graduates he
wanted for $1,000 a year, but it took
twice that much to hire a really ex-
pert cattle feeder.
| Mr.. Wilson did not disparage univer-
| sity education. He was merely en-
phasizing the demand for men who
have been trained to do things as well
as to know them. The advance of the
manual training movement, the recog-
milton of the value of the kindergar-
ten, the increasing efforts to train
children rather than to drive them
all are indications of what will be the
state of the educational system of the
country in the wear 0h00
The nearer approach to ideals in
education will not be the result of
academic altruisn, but it will come
perforce as the result of stern neces-
sity. Competition is growing keener
every day, and when there are $50, 00O,-
600 people in this country it viii be
sharper than we dream of. Only the
qualified man will be able to succeed
in that day, and the educational adj
vantages necessary to furnish those
qualifications will be forthcoming
The jack-of-all trades fourished a
century ago. He is out at the heels
now. He will have starved to death
long before the end of this century.
The seventy EIGHT million American
public school pupils of the year 1000
will know of the once lauded "little
red school house" only by the tales
they read in old books. The passing
of that stored institution is even now
contributing largely toward the adj
vancement of the cause of popular edu-
cation. The little red school house"
was useful in its day and it served
noble purpose. It's day is done now,
and it is to be found only in the most
still hears regrets for its predecessor
the "old field schoo,"-but they are
founded in sentimentality.
Ninety years ago the field school,
was growing toward it's prime. "Acad-
emies'' and colleges were as numer-
Gus as there were villages in which
to establish them. They were good
schools, too, and in them the sons of
the well-to-do were taught much Eng
lish, little more of Latin and some
Greek. The classics were not only re-
vered, but worshiped, and in the sue
ceeding generation a public speaker
who could not quote from the Latin
and Greek poets might as well not
open his mouth. But the school was
not popular, for the majority of the
boys and nearly all the girls in the
nefghborhood never saw its interior.
school-the little red house of dialect
poetry Here the children of the power
ty-stricken and the struggling were
gathered in, as well as those of the |
welI-to-do. The three RS were taught. |
the dead languages were quit forgot |
ten, the teachers were more demo-
cratic but not nearly so well equipped !
as their predecessors of the 'oId field I
and the influence for good was great /.
ly extended.
Now the little red school house is
passing away. The towns and cities
have long enjoyed the privileges of
sending their children to graded pub
lie schools. The majority of americans .
live in the country. In no less than
thirty states the rural central graded
school gives the rural boy the same
possessed by his urban
cousin. More than hundred thou
sand school children are each day be