Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-22
EDUCATOR HAS
BROAD IDEALS
SAN PEDRO SUPERINTENDENT
NOT HIDEB0UND
FINDS SCHOOL SYSTEM HERE
BEST HE HAS SEEN
Saws Executive Does Not Hamper
Teacher with Narrow Rules, but
Allows Opportunity for
individuality

one does not think of san Pedro as
a center of culture. Yet Garfield said
that "a log with a student on one end
and Mark Hopkins on the other is a
university" san Pedro obviously has
its log, and when that city was an
nexed the Los Angeles school depart
ment acquired its local Mark Hopkins
in the person of its superintendent OF
schools, DR.. Grant Karr.
Down in the little town by the sea,
working for the interest of the schools.
is a man of broad culture, of profound
and original though, and distinguished
career. Dr. Karr is a graduate OF
Jena university, Germany, as well as
the Illinois State Normal university.
At the former he won his doctors de
gree in philosophy and pedagogy IN
1899. He spent several years as teach
er of the principles of education ana
superintendent of the practice school,
in Oswego Normal, New York. Where
he found fertile ground for planting
the seed of his educational belief, ana
made of his department one of the
best of the kind in the country. Seek
ing a broader field for his labors, he
accepted. last spring, the position OF
Superintendent of schools Of San Pedro'
DR.. Karr is enthusiastic over the
educational outlook in the west. You
have room out here" he says, for the
expansion, the development of the in
dividual You are not hidebound IN
the traditions and conventions OF ed
ucation. The west is the land of ideals,
but its ideas and institutions are tlexi-
Bile.
Fine Educational System
"When I came to San Pedro" went
on DR.. Karr, land heard of the pro-
posed annexation, I came very near
turning around and going back. l
feared to find systematiZation crush
ing out the fine free spirit of educa-
tion, as is so apt to be the case In
the great cities But it is not so. Los
Angeles has the finest educational sys-
tenn 1 have ever seen. Your executive
does not hamper his people with mar
row rules, deadening to all originality
of execution and enthusiasm of spirit,
but allows the greatest freedom in the
teacher, to develop his own department
of work, with just enough of restrain
ing judgment and control on his part
to get the best results.
Dr. Karr comes with new message
to the educational world, or at least
a new and vital expression of older
thought. His theory is as far removed
as possible from the Gradgrind sys-
TEN, with the children ranged IN an
inclined plane of little vessels. wait
ing to be filled with imperial gallons
of fact" In a nutshell, Dr. Karr's
theory is that the daily and natural
interests and tastes of the child's life
should be the basis of his education.
According to him, the broader the
course of study, the more threads of
the childs nature are caught up into
the texture of his education.
Amplifed, it is that the real in
terests of the child's life are family
interests, daily occupations, sense of
ownership religion and the esthetic in
terest; that the course of study should
be a correlation of the various sub
tects, the subjects themselves based
upon and interviewer with those in
terests.
DR.. Karr is the enemy of the infex-
ible course of study perfunctorily ad-
ministered.
1.-THE school should be an arrange
ment for allowing the best there is in
children to develop into the best it can,
rather than a place for the comforting
of techniques and making children
over according to preconceived plans
of what they should be.
Reading, writing and arithmetic
are merely assistants to the main
elements of life When these leading
interests and their development have
been properly cared for, it will be
much easier to understand the various
subjects in the course, and place them
in right relations to the main charac-
teristics in life and education, and to
each other in the course of study"
DR.. Karr gives the extreme express
sion of his notion of the social nature
of education when he says: THE
course of study of the future will
doubtless follow more closely the plan
of the course of study pursued in the
home school under the mother teacher,
who, as Froebel discovered, is still the
best exponent of practical educational
principles"
Dr. Karr's name is well known among
readers of educational publications
He is the author of Review and Criti-
cism of the Course of Study as Pre-
sented by DR.. William T. Harris"
former United States commissioner of
educatiOn-the educator who first advo-
Gated and introduced manual training
and kindergartens and the study of
art in the schools Of this country. DR.
Harris made public acknowledgment
of his qualification at the brilliant
presentation which DR.. Karr gave of
his educational theories.