The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-09-22
Poor Work in Public Schools.

Under this heading, The Washing
ton Post discusses editorially the ex-
listing conditions in the public schools
of the country whereby, through over
specialization of certain branches
which may or may not have direct
bearing upon the future vocation of
the pupil, and through lack of thor
oughness in other branches distinctly
related to the requirements of the
practical world, the average public
school graduate attains a mere smat-
tering of knowledge, a surface educa-
ton, as it were, which will not sur
vive severe examination. Colleges
everywhere complain that although it
is expected and demanded, in fact, that
the public school shall lay the foun-
dalton upon which the college builds
the complete structure, the discoy-
cry of poor workmanship, poor ma
terials and exceeding carelessness in
the building of these foundations is
so frequent as to be source of dis
gust to the professor and of deep hui
initiation to the college applicant.
Various reasons are advanced by
various thinkers as to the cause of
this unfortunate situation. Many hold
the textbooks at fault and the most
casual observer will find upon exam
ination into the matter that many a
textbook used as a standard in the
public schools is beyond the compre-
hension of the average schoolchild,
that it. is only'in recent years that ex-
perienced teachers have set them
selves the task of writing histories for
children and biographies for youngs-
ters rather than teach the unintelli-
gible, badly-prepared subject matter
differed by many books. History, pro-
perly taught, should be a source Of
never-ending interest to the school
child but in many cases it means
hopeless tumble of meaningless dates,
forget. Whereas, in truth, the number
of dates which it is requisite a we'll
informed person should know, is COM
Daratively few, the school boy finds
himself set to the task of memorizing
hundreds upon hundreds which are
relatively insignificant. 1t is vastly
more important that child should
understand the Monroe Doctrine then
he should be a BILE to tell when it
went into effect. If we are making
parrots of our children, then by all
means insist upon repetition of dates
over and over again until the poor
child is hopelessly confused and
learns to hate a study which should
be profitable and entertaining.
Grammars of certain types define
an adjective as "a word limiting or
defining substantive, usually by at
tributing some quality to it," def
milton which is stilted and unneces-
sary and which the boy or girl of ten
and eleven does not grasp at once and
therefore cannot be expected to ap-
ply a rule which he does not compre-
bend in the first place. After all, there
is no reason why knowledge should
not be served daintily like food, in
palatable quantities, attractive to the
child mind and arrayed upon delicate
salvers.
However, there are those who Ue-
leve the textbooks infallible and who
insist that the three RS are neglected
at the cost of the efficiency of the
graduate while over attention is paid
to fads and fancies which should
rightfully have but small measure of
space granted them in the school cur
riculum. They complain that the
school curriculum is too elastic, ad-
hitting of little of all things and
not much of anything, that superficial