Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-07-13
An Illinois Plan.


Educating the youth of the nation
isn't what it used to be. The present
generation of fathers and mothers, the
most of whom served their allotted
nine to IA years in the public schools.
refuse to bow down to the fetish of
a fixed ration of Latin and Greek for
all. In the West the folks who are re-
sponsible for schools, the fathers and
mothers, have taken hand in the
matter In Freeport. ILL.,. for instance,
there is what is known as The Citi-
zens' Commercial Association. This
association has joined with the school
board in inaugurating system of
practical industrial educat ton, by which
boys are taught trade, earn pocket
money, attend school and have a good
time, all in one school year.
The new system has solved the prob
lem of keeping a healthy. normal boy
of IA in school. Few school systems
have succeeded in doing that, for at IA
most boys want to go to work. The
new system has solved the problem Of
developing both sides of the boy at the
same time His ingenuity and me-
chanical ability develop along with his
ability to absorb the so-called classical
education, which custom has decreed
that he must get somehow, whether he
wants it or not. 1t has been discovered,
much to the surprise of everyone, that
the boy who spent every other week
of the school year in the factory was
able and did pass just as difficult ex-
amnations at the end of the year as
did the scholars who stayed at the
desks without interruption. There is
no way to estimate the extent to which
the factory-sch trained boy surpass-
cd the purely school raised product in
breadth of view, ability to assign cor
rect values readily, ability to make
practical use of what he has been
taught in school and in all round physi-
cal and mental strength.
Mr.. Shearer of the Citizens Com
mercial Association. who was princi-
pally instrumental in introducing the
plan, says:
1.-The F'reeport plan means a radical
change in educational matters that is
about as far away from the old time
classical system as it is possible to get.
in high school to such an
extent is an innovation which points
to radical changes in our educational
methods, leaning we'll over towards
the manufacturing interests of the
mo radical change in the curriculum
of the Freeport High school is con-
tenpIated at present, but in all proba-
bility the system will be extended along
especial lines looking to the educa-
ton of young men and young women
to fit them for the especial lines OF
work chosen by them.
"Technical studies will be used as
mind trainers just as effectually as
and the boys will imblbe
of a practical value while
they are still young"
The parents are finding out that
family pride isn't the only thing to be
satisfied 1t is we'll enough to tell a
boy that he must learn this or that
SO he won't be ashamed when he
grows up. How many times we have
heard it. But there is something more
to it. If boy keeps up with the process
sion, he must be able to perform
given task better than his father
did 20 or 30 years before. The pro-
cession has been advancing during
those 20 or 80 years and the boy must
begin just about where his father
leaves off, in the industrial world. In
as his father is paying the
pills, it is no more than right that
the boy get the necessary start in the
public schools. Freeport, ILL.,, has found
one way of giving it to him.