The Elbert County tribune., 1910-03-04

tendency of public school education
The metropolis has, including high schoois,
651.325 children enrolled in its 5l4 senooi
houses which cost $99 .133.000. and has a teach-
ing and supervising force of 16,4s9 persons,
whose combined salaries amount to sl',osl'ooo
year.
For weeks l went from school to school,
from class room to class room, from teacner 10
teacher. from principal to professor observ
ing. questioning comparing analyzing the old
idea of the common school with the new, par
ticularly looking to see how theory consisted
with practice and results.
To start with. had the fact that there Is
general complaint that the boys and girls who
come from American public schools write bad
ly, spell badly, and are weak in grammar and
arithmetic.
But facts are hard things to overcome, and
the more / searched for evidence with which
to shame and confound modern pedagogy and
its methods, the less disposed to con-
demn until finally 1t became plain that l. In
common with the general public, was mistaken,
and that an attack upon what is known the
new education could not be justified. That
there is some waste and much that is expert
mental in 1t cannot be denied. But the great
groundwork of 1t seems to be sound and prac
tical.
1t is claimed that the old system of teach
Ing children in the schools based on an
ignorant theory of the human brain. The idea
was that stern high drill in a few subjects
developed mental power that could be used
in all subjects. Teachers have assumed that
the mind was group of general powers or
faculties such as observation. comparison, at
tention, logic, memory. language, and SO on.
and that an intensive study along the line OF
any mind faculty would develop that faculty
as whole and practically for all purposes.
It is now held by leading educational
thorities that the brain, instead of being a col
lection of few general faculties divides itself
nm, cfipatf inn int
and that mental power developed in one func
ton of the brain cannot as rule be trans
ferred to another function.
That discovery upsets the foundations on
which education has been based for centuries
and together with the modern demand for
technical and manual training to meet indus
trial problems. accounts for the sweeping
changes observable in the public schools.
To-day the teaching profession has grown
to enormous proportions. There are in the
United States alone more than half million
teachers and college professors. That is more
than a third of the membership of all the pro-
fessions combined. The teachers of the coun
try outnumber the lawyers or physicians
than four to one
Pedagogy has suddenly become a conscious
profession which seeks to establish itself upon
a firm scientific basis.
The new idea is that broad curriculum
embracing in addition to the three Rs, man
ual training, art. science and nature studies
touches all the latent possibilities. tastes and
ambitions of the child: arouses. interests and
develops Its capacities; and. SO. prepares 1t for
selfrealzation in its life vocation.
Such Investigators as Prof Edward L.
Thorndike, professor OF educational psychology
in the Teachers college. Columbia university
declare that actual scientific tests show that
the specialization of the human mind is even
greater than ordinary observation leads one to
suppose"
That thrillingly beautiful ceremony in which
600 New York school children and their
10000 teachers begin each mornings work by
stretching out their hands to the American
flag and solemnly pledging allegiance to 1t is