Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-05-11

The end of the school year is near, and
throughout the country comes COMPARE
son and review of educational work, dis
cussions of the failures and successes OF
hundreds of methods tried during the
past two terms, and national attention IS
again attracted to the system of adult
education that has been so successfully
conducted In New York for twenty years.
and in a few other cities for a shorter
period. New York, the one city in the
world where a child is taken through the
kindergarten, elementary school, high
school and college without one cent OF
expense, saw no reason why a person
should be reckOned as having no further
interest in educational because he hap
pened to be grown and was among the
ranks of the wage earners. Thousand
among the three and half million popu-
lation of New York had never completed
courses of study that they would have
liked to complete, and as many thou
sand more have little time to read up
on subjects, even if they had someone
to direct such studies
To these, twenty years ago came the
city board of education, and opening six
school houses during an evening eacn
week, gave free lectures on THE Chemis-
try of What We Eat and Drink" 'Illu-
to Study Science at Home, ""COnstitution-
al Law" and THE Human Machine
Shop" That the neighborhood people
were hungry for such instruction and di-
version was proved by an aggregate at
tendance of over $4,000 The next year
more centers were opened and the same
type of lectures offered, but these peo-
pie of the professional world. of the shops,
of the factories, of the trades, wanted
ton
sion line, and beginning then, regular
courses in the arts, sciences and literature
have been mapped out, and under COM
petent lectures have been followed with
gratifying success.
In the twenty years the lecture centers
have grown from six to 17S; the six mis-
cellaneous lectures have expanded into
three groups comprising lie courses of 707
subjects, and the attendance of $4,000 has
grown to over 100000 The audiences
have passed with the time from the small
upstairs rooms where unillustrated lee
lures were held, through successive stages
of public halls hired for that purpose by
the board, to the free halls of the public
| libraries and social organizations and mu-
seums, and school auditoriums of the
most modern kind, all fitted with plat
forms, good seats and stereopticion out
MS 10 Illustrate the ldihS.
! Who go to these lectures? Note some
| of the letters written the department of
! education in answer to the question why
! they came to the lectures and if they
! enjoyed them. A very old man writes
/ Or Oslers theory don't worry me. l
work all day at manual labor, but in the
/ evening I feel like a child attending
| school with regard to attending these
/ grand instructive lectures" A woman
! writes: MY husband and 1 take it turn
! about staying with the children so the
! other can attend the lectures. 1t is our
/ only diversion" One writes he attends
! the lectures for two reasons, first for
/ pleasure and second to listen and learn
I new subjects never heard in school An
! other couple reports they have attended
/ the lectures for fourteen years, another
! for sixteen, and a lawyer of seventy-seven
/ adds his testimony and tells that he has
attended almost every lecture given in his
neighborhOod. A man in the iron bust
ness writes gratefully of the lectures on
metallurgy. another shows how the CEN
! tiers are more attractive to him than the
| cheap shows, and scores of other letters
! show the writer's to be students of some
! certain branch pursuing the lecture
course either to benefit themselves in their
! careers or for the general culture and
| education given.
| In New York. the great polyglOt city of
! the world. the educational work is the
! prime facto' IN doing away with the con-
fusion of tongues and making of the one
] n lndred different nationalities gathered
there, intelligent and reliable American
! citizens. I'm London the school instruction
/ is i'm English for +he English. In Paris
! ii is for a French ~eople. In New York,
! the largest Irish and Jewish city on the
! globe. and one of the largest Italian and
/ German, the instruction must be for all
| peoples, and toward the one end-perfect
assimilation. In one East Side there are
! twenty-three nationalities represented,
and the janitor OF many schools has To be
man of several languages.
The public school reaches the child pop-
ulation in a thorough way, the city OF
New York spending twice as much on its
educational system as any other city in
the world. over $4,000 teachers offer in