Perth Amboy evening news., 1910-02-16
SCHOOLS ARE
DISCUSSED
IN A LETTER
EDITOR EVENING NEWs.

EDITOR EVENING NEWS:
Night schools are needed-no-
body seems TO dispute it. But do
our day schools give our children
what they should? Facts in ones
! own experience count heavily, for
they are the things one knows, so
here are some in mine.
]. young woman, graduate OF a
normal school and of very modern
methods of education, was looking
up word in the dictionary lately
and asked her mother, Of the old
school, whether II came before or
after L. She had never been taught
the alphabet.
2. Two of my children, twelve
years or more apart, attended kin
dergarten. Each of them could say
cat If she saw It under the picture
OF one;- but If cat were written un-
der the picture of pig, it would be
pig. Neither Of them were given
the faintest notion of letters as let
ters, nor of their sounds independ-
entity or in association with other
letters. Such as they had, they had
been taught at home.
3. Two of my children, just be-
ginning TO form their handwriting
nicely under the old-fashioned Spen-
cerian system, were switched off to
the modern neutrality-suspicious.
one, with the result that for years
their scrawls were disgraceful.
4. Two Of my children spent
many weary hours, both at school
and at home, writing out the multi
plication tables, thus: 2x2-4,
2xS-6, &c, &c. ! was told that
this was the modern method, and
that these tables were no longer
learned by heart or recited in con-
cert. This and a similar change In
method with relation to spelling,
substituting the laborious and time
taking writing out of words for the
oral recitation and committing to
memory, would seem to account
largely for the appalling increase in
the amount of homework the child
has now to do, in comparison with
the old days.
8. Business men OF my acuuafnt-
ance have frequently complained
that employees of theirs who are
graduates of the public schools now
adays are poor writer's, spoilers and
figurers.
Many questions relating to tho
science Of teaching are not settled
questions. / believe it is now ad-
mitted. for example, that the intro
duction of the vertical method of
writing was a mistake And many
intelligent thinkers believe that the
work of the kindergarten has been
unwisely broadened beyond the
limits expressed by Froebel, its
founder: to give the children "em-
ployment suited to their nature,
strengthen their bodies, exercise
/ their senses, employ the waking
mind, make them acquainted judi
ciously with nature and society, cul-
tivate especially the heart and tenn
per, and lead them to the foundation
of all living-to unity with them
selves" Good mothers do all this
for their little ones, it is true. But
some mothers are not good ones.
some are obliged to neglect their
ehildren's home training to put
bread into their mouths, and SOME
poor little ones are motherless. 81
the cfFr IIS SsSaen can and shoul
supply second m0s 90 many
youngsters But it should not force
them beyond their natures; and
above ALL 1t should not teach them
things which they are.obliged to un-
learn later on.
And If the present methods OF
teaching in the upper grades result
in greatly increasing (as they do)
the amount of homework, robbing
/ the child of its hours of recreation,
and finally turning out poor spoilers,
poor writer's and poor ffgurers, then
there is something wrong in modern
teaching meth DDS. ] know this has
been the result with my own chill
dren and others whom I~have OBJ
! served; and / know that 1t was not
the result under the methods Of
| teaching the three RS in vogue
thirty or forty years ago.
Many features of the so-called
modern method of teaching are still
on trial. If they do not make good
! in results, they must go, however
beautiful they may be in theory.
We American people have right to-
demand the best results from our
public school system. and under
present methods l believe it is a
very grave question whether we are
getting them.
JOHN II. MULCHAHEY.
February 10, 1910.